Shards To A Whole
by Keryl Raist
Summary: Some things will make you re-evaluate your life. Getting blown up, thinking you're fine, and then looking down and seeing a hunk of glass sticking out of your body is one of those things. Tim decides it's time to put his life on track and go after the things he wants, namely Abby and a family. Novel length McAbby erotic romance.
1. A Shard of Glass

1.

There haven't been a whole lot of watershed moments in Tim McGee's life.

The shift from bio-medical engineering to forensic computing; that was one. He never quite fit in with the bio-med kids. Sure he got the basic ideas, and he was good at them, but while they were in love with creating new tech to extend life, he was more into the puzzle of how everything fit together. He felt like a physicist in a room of mathematicians. He spoke the same language, used the same tools, but he didn't want to do the same things with them. So, one night, long, long after the regular students had gone to bed, hung over or still drunk from epic parties, the sorts of which he never attended, he was talking with another gamer, the conversation started with the pros and cons of tabletop roleplaying versus MUDs and whatnot and moved from there into what you could really do with a computer. That conversation pointed him in a new path. He began to fiddle with the computer he used mostly for gaming, took a few CS courses, and graduated with a 4.0 in Biomedical Engineering. But he sent a note to Columbia, telling them he was declining the position he'd earned in their Biomedical Engineering combined Masters Doctorate program.

That summer he started playing with a computer in a new way. He put the games down and began to program. It was the late 90s, hackers were the bleeding edge of geek culture, and he found a new home. He took a year "off," programmed until his eyes felt like they'd fall out of his head, and applied to MIT.

He fit in with the hackers at MIT lot better than the bio-med kids at John Hopkins. Obsessive personalities with a penchant for fantasy made up the majority of his new peers, and for the first time in his life he wasn't a minority.

When he finished his masters, the CIA, FBI, NSA, and IRS all courted him. He thinks it was just sheer perverse cussedness, and maybe a desire to get his father to actually notice he was alive and stop seeing him as a massive disappointment, that got him to pick NCIS.

And it was there, during his first year at NCIS that he really began to understand what he was doing. The shift from forensic computing as a cool way to prove to other hackers that he was better and brighter than they were to seeing it as a way to solve crime and help real, live, tangible human beings was, up until this moment, the watershed moment of his life.

But now, he's standing in front of his desk, sweltering, his head still ringing from the explosion, staring at the chunk of glass sticking out of HIS FREAKING BODY, and Gibbs, unflinching, unflappable Gibbs is looking worried, and touching him tenderly, which actually scares him more than THE GLASS STICKING OUT OF HIS ABDOMEN, he's thinking that this is actually _the_ watershed moment of his life.

And it's time to see about making some changes.

Assuming he gets the chance to do so. Gibbs, gently, gets him sitting down, back against the surprisingly undestroyed wall of his desk, tells him to stay put, and runs (RUNS!) off to get an EMT.

Tim looks at the glass again, and finds himself thinking that he never properly told Abby he loved her, then he realized that he didn't know if she's okay... No, she had to be okay, Gibbs wouldn't have been just wandering about if Abby wasn't okay... and then everything sort of grayed out and went sideways.


	2. Code and Ink

2.

At the hospital, they very gently peel off his jacket. The nurses in the emergency room don't bother to try to take his shirt off; they just cut it off of him. Then, with the glass still in his side, they wheel him into a dimly lit room with an ultrasound machine.

The ultrasound tech, who, he's sure, is gently using the wand to see how bad it is, but it feels like he's being pounded by a red-hot hammer, asks him about the tattoo on his left deltoid. She's probably just looking for a way to take his mind off of what she's doing or how much it hurts. Maybe trying to help him not think about the fact that they've got no idea how deep the glass is, and if the only reason he's not bleeding out is because it's still inside him.

He answers on automatic, barely paying any attention to what he's saying. "It's a bit of code I came up with a long time ago."

Tim's a geek. Tim has always been a geek, and he always will be a geek. That's just who he is. But, he's a geek who had already significantly rewritten his life twice by the time Tony, Abby, Kate, and Gibbs came onto the scene, and he had been looking for something to commemorate that. Because, though he was sure he'd continue to find new hats and adventures (for example, adding best-selling author to his list of accomplishments) computer guy is his core identity now.

So, on his shoulder is a bit of code he wrote for his Masters Dissertation. It's in Python, and though it's not cutting edge now, it was when he came up with it. And it was that bit of code, that allowed him to show his professors how to sort through literally millions of data points to find the pattern they needed to predict where certain sorts of crimes would happen, that set him on this path. Sure, other people had written code to do that before, and others did later, and better. But Tim was the first guy to turn thousands of lines of C++ into three tidy lines of Python, and he was the guy who took it from being a job that took days into a job that took minutes.

Every third sailor has Mom tattooed on his ass, which is why that was the first, quickest lie he could think of when Tony asked. He was sure Tony would have scoffed at what he really got done. (And five years later, when Tony did actually see his tattoo, he did scoff, asking if it was part of his Elf Lord persona, because for all Tony knows about code, or elves for that matter, his tattoo could have been in Elvish.)

And, he didn't get the tattoo just to impress Abby, though that was certainly the final push in that direction. He'd been thinking about it for months at that point. But it did impress her. Which he was very thankful for, because, well, Tim's never been what anyone would call a fine example of male physiology. He's not now, or ever, been known for rippling, sculpted musculature, and even at his fittest, he's tended toward pale and skinny, not buff. And he was not, by about 30 pounds, at his fittest the first time Abby saw that tattoo.

And well, half-naked with a beautiful girl he really hoped to impress isn't exactly Tim's strong suit either. So, yes, when she saw it, shortly after taking his shirt off and stopped everything to spend twenty minutes discussing it with him, not only was it a way to impress her that didn't involve sucking in his stomach and desperately trying to look like he'd worked out at least once in the previous year, it also helped him to relax, and both of them had a better time in the long run because of it.


	3. The Nature of the Goth

3.

In the movies they might just yank out the piece of glass after discovering that it doesn't appear to be piercing anything vital, slap a few stitches on the wound, and the hero goes back to work, gently oozing blood, saving the day, and winning the girl.

But Tim's not in a movie.

The Ultrasound Tech now has a surgical nurse with her. The nurse eases out the glass, and the tech reports back that there are still something like fifteen little bits of glass in the wound.

The next three hours are a haze of pain, very powerful pain-killers that seem to be making everything in his world distort into drippy colors, and occasional updates as to what is going on with the rest of the team.

When everyone is reported alive and accounted for, he dozes.

And at some point Abby shows up, listens to what the doctor says about his post-recovery care, and takes him home.

He half-dozes, half-gazes at her as she drives to his place.

They didn't so much break up as just wander apart. Nothing acrimonious, though to some degree Tim doubts anything that involves Abby can get that way. She's just so... Abby... that the idea that she'd be involved in a messy and hurtful break-up just doesn't fit in his world view.

They dated for a few months, slept together a half-dozen times, and then the cases kept coming, and they were working together more and more, and suddenly they were working together full-time, and then they were friends, which worked out pretty well, because at first glance they looked like the perfect couple, but they aren't, or weren't, not really.

Goths and gamers go together like peanut butter and chocolate, like Venn diagrams and Facebook updates, but, and it took a while for Tim to figure this out, Abby isn't a Goth, not the way most of the Goths he met before were.

For most Goths it's a lifestyle. A specifically chosen mode of dealing with the rest of the world, a set path and series of rules for carving out an identity, weeding out those who won't mesh well with oneself, and defining one's interactions with the people around them.

It's a layer of fantasy that protects the inner person, removing those who are likely to hurt or disappoint by keeping them at arm's length.

Tim needs that fantasy shield. He's got several of them. Elf Lord, Thom E. Gemcity, half-a-dozen online personas, Probie, they're all variations on Timothy McGee, and allow him to experience life with a protective layer in place between him and it.

But Abby isn't a Goth in that sense. The clothing, the make-up, the coffin, they aren't shields for her, (at least not in that sense, issues of mortality are a different story all together) they're just her. And when they were dating, he didn't quite get that about her, nor did she really get that he couldn't just be the Elf Lord or Thom or whomever.

But that was nine years ago, and in the intervening almost decade they've learned each other well enough to see the real person there.

And in the intervening nine years, he's always assumed, that eventually, they'd get back together.

Tim and Abby. Abby and Tim. That's the default setting. Right now they're off messing about with other settings, trying them out, seeing how they work, but when it comes down to it, they'll go back to where they're supposed to be. After all, they have plenty of time.

Tim gently pokes the bandage on his side.

He's thirty-four. Abby's forty. (Though he's not supposed to mention that, and she's got most people believing she's perpetually 28.) And, as the pain from poking himself slowly registers through the haze of his medication, he's realizing he's not going to live forever. She's not either. And if I love you means let's-get-married-and-have-kids-and-grow-old-together, doing something about it while you're still young enough to have the kids and growing old hasn't already happened is necessary.


	4. Pho and GChat

4.

Tim wakes up to clicking sounds. He's not at all surprised to see Abby sitting cross-legged on the side of his bed, a bag that smells yummy next to her, a laptop in front of her, open to gchat, and, he squints a little, Palmer chatting with her.

"Hey."

"You're awake."

He rubs his eyes, and sits up, slowly. It feels like his entire left side is on fire.

"How's Ducky?" He's a little fuzzy on what exactly happened between saying, 'It feels warm in here,' and now, but he does remember hearing that Tony and Ziva had been located, and Ducky had had a heart attack.

"Alive. Jimmy says he'll be fine, as long as he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Good." He closes his eyes and relaxes back against the head board. The sound of Abby typing dies down, and he hears her close the computer.

"I brought food." She's not as perky as usual. Not chattering away. He knows that means she's unhappy or scared, but he figures both are fitting for right now, so he doesn't press.

"Thanks."

"The doctor said you're supposed to take it easy today and tomorrow. Nothing too heavy to eat, either. Clear broth for you. They don't think the glass got through your abdominal muscles, but just in case, they don't want to risk anything too strenuous for your intestinal track. So I got us Pho. You get the soup part, and I get the noodles."

"Sounds good." She stands up, picking up the bag. "Abby?"

"Yeah."

"I love you."

She smiles sweetly at him for a moment, but he can still see fear in her eyes, and kisses his forehead. "I love you, too, McGee. Let me get this set for us."

And, okay, that wasn't I love you forever, let's get married, have bunches of kids, grow old, and die together, let alone, I love you, let's start dating again, but it's a start, a good first step, and it felt really good to say it to her.

And there'll be time for more than that it the future.


	5. In the Dark

The pain meds wear off slowly. He's lying in bed, and she's still next to him, holding his hand.

He knows she's not sleeping.

And he knows there's nothing sexual or romantic about this. He's hurt. She's scared. They're best friends. So, it's dark, and it's night, and they're both in the same bed, not sleeping.

Just being near each other is enough.

For now.

He's told Abby he loves her before. In fact, he's told her three or four times a year for probably the last five years.

Sometimes it happens when she's broken the case and he's feeling grateful. Usually, it happens when he just wants to let her know how she's his best friend and how happy he is to have her in his life.

The first time, after Cassidy was killed, was a little awkward, but after that, it's just flowed. Between his dad and Gibbs, McGee has spent more than enough of his life around strong silent types who don't express emotion. He's got no desire to be that guy himself.

Though he suspects that even Gibbs manages to regularly tell Abby he loves her. Because she's lovely and because she's just makes people want to be happy, and spread the happy around. Even Gibbs has to melt in the face of how warm Abby is.

He squeezes her hand gently, and feels her squeeze his in return. Eventually, he drifts off to sleep, Abby holding his hand, by his side.


	6. The Next Morning

6.

Moving from, I-love-you, you're-my-best-friend to I-love-you-let's-spend-forever-together is a somewhat more daunting task in the light of day.

Abby's gone by the time he's up and moving.

It takes him longer than usual to get showered and dressed. Just finding plastic wrap, and getting his midsection wrapped up so he can get a shower without getting his bandage wet is an adventure that slows him down by ten minutes.

In the shower, gingerly soaping up, he thinks about how he should actually go about doing this, because showing up with flowers and asking her to dinner tonight just isn't his style. Deliberation, planning, knowing what he's going to do, how he's going to do it, and making sure he's explored all possible variations of how he might do this before settling on a plan is his style.

For the last nine years, he and Abby have been coasting along. They're in a safe, comfortable space. And since they work together, and since everyone around them also depends on their ability to work together, a warm friendship makes a lot of sense.

After all, a disastrous break up for two people who spend no professional time together isn't a huge deal. Yes, it's personally painful, but it's not like people will die.

He and Abby have a flaming break-up, and people might die. Anything that slows down their efficiency at catching the bad guys can result in more dead people. And, on a personal level, he might die. If he screws this up and hurts her, Gibbs will kill him, and not in the traditional pissed-off-dad sort of way, but in the literally-dead-and-never-seen-again sort of way.

For Tim McGee, rule number twelve isn't just a matter of keeping his work life functional; it's also about not pissing off the scariest man he knows.

So, this is going to take planning.

Fortunately, Tim is good at planning.

Tim is also cautious, much to the eternal chagrin of both his father and grandfather. Both of whom, by his age, ran their own ships. Both of whom eventually made Admiral. And both of whom were deeply confused by a small boy who enjoyed make believe games and then video games, and didn't appear to have any killer instinct or interest in the Navy, at all.

So, rinsing off, he's not planning on admitting his undying love to Abby tonight, or tomorrow night, or for that matter, any time this week and possibly month.

He is thinking a good first step is making sure he's ready to be in a real relationship. Because if this is going to crash and burn, and he's aware it might, it isn't going to happen because he's pulled some sort of Tony-esque fear-of-commitment, run-away-from-an-adult-relationship-like-a-little-boy routine.

That in mind, he goes back to work, brushes off his co-worker's concern for him, making light of the injury that's still throbs whenever he moves, and immerses himself in Mission: Get Harper Deering.


	7. Advice

7.

Tim has never had a problem asking for advice when he needs help.

So that's not the problem.

The problem is finding someone to ask.

He's scoured his own mind to try and remember how his last real relationship went, but he was still in grad school the last time he had a girlfriend for more than a year, and the man he is now is so much different from the boy he was then, that it doesn't seem to be a good comparison.

Sooo... who to talk to?

Gibbs is good at helping you see straight, in that silent, you sit next to him, drink some, and epiphanies hit sort of way, but Gibbs has also been divorced a million times, and the closest thing Abby has to a dad. Plus, if he's trying to keep this quiet to avoid getting tripped up on Rule Number 12, talking to Gibbs about it isn't a brilliant plan. So, he's out.

Ducky—who, Tim is secretly afraid of turning into, the man with the thousand stories and no one at home to tell them to—may have a tale for everything, but has even less practical experience on this than he has. And, while he's sure Ducky will have many fascinating bon mots on the subject, he's also sure that he'd like to talk to someone with a clue as to how to keep a long-running relationship going.

He could talk to his grandmother, but, well, ewwww... Penelope's more likely to want to talk him through the intricacies of the Kama Sutra than help him get into a good headspace for a real relationship. Plus, even if he could get her off of sex, and onto relationshiping? relating? whatever, she'd likely tell him something like stop thinking so much and just do it. Not advice he wants to hear, let alone advice he'd know how to act on.

The idea of Tony enters his mind, and then does an abrupt about face and marches right back out again. Getting advice from a guy whose A: Last successful long-term relationship was an undercover mission. B: Made out with his ex-fiancee back around Valentine's Day, while C: In love with his partner, while D: Being completely unwilling to admit that he is in love with said partner, does not in any way strike Tim as a good idea. Add in the fact that Tony can't keep a hot bit of scuttlebutt to himself, and talking to Tony is a disaster waiting to happen.

Thinking of Tony makes him think of Ziva, who has the advantage of being able to keep a secret, and on top of that, is a woman, so she might have a better idea of what it's like to be the female half of the equation than Gibbs or Tony, but Ziva has the worst relationship track record he can think of. Sure Gibbs might not be a huge fan of his ex-wives, but unlike Ziva's exes, they aren't responsible for killing anyone, or trying to kill anyone, like, you know, Tony.

Director Vance actually has a functional relationship, one that has lasted years, but the mental image of asking Vance for advice literally won't form in Tim's mind. He can't make himself imagine it, and if he can't imagine it, he's really unlikely to be able to do it in real life.

It takes him two full days to figure out that he does know someone to talk to. Someone his age. Someone who is married (barely). Someone who loves Abby, knows her well, and would be willing to keep a secret if said secret would work out well for her.

It's time to talk to Palmer.


	8. Dinner With Jimmy

8.

Of course, talking to Palmer, alone, without attracting the attention of Tony and Ziva is a bit of an issue. But with the office completely upside down during the reconstruction, Tim found an excuse to wander down to Autopsy.

The door slides open, and for a moment Tim doesn't see anyone, besides the bodies, and then Palmer hurries out, way too many folders clutched in his arms. Tim jogs to him.

"Here, let me help."

Jimmy sags with relief as Tim grabs the folders that are about to spill out of his arms. It occurs to Tim that if you call someone fried when they are stressed out, that Palmer is one of those little orphan french fries that get stuck in the fryolator and end up cooking for a full day. He's not fried, he's not burnt, he's charcoal.

"I never realized how much Dr. Mallard does around here," Jimmy says to him.

"We felt that way when Gibbs left. Tony did fine, but we could all see the cracks forming. And you're doing fine, too. It's just not as smooth."

Palmer laughs, bitterly. "Going for understatement of the decade, Tim?" Tim shrugs. "So, who wants what?"

"I want dinner." Tim nodded at the clock, showing it was already eight. "I know you've been here until midnight every night for the last week, so how about we get some real food?"

"I can't leave. Too much to do here. Every minute I'm away is another minute later that I get home."

"Well, if I brought you food, could you take a break for a bit?"

"Probably. What's going on?"

"Would you believe that I want to talk to you?"

Palmer looks startled. He and Tim get along well. Common interests, similar personalities, but they don't just hang out all that often.

"What about?"

Tim thinks about how to phrase this. "It's personal. And, I'd really rather not see this get spread all over NCIS."

Jimmy puts down the folders. "I'm interested." He looks at the clock. "Who am I kidding? I'm not getting this done tonight. Every paper I fill out spawns ten more. Let's go."

There's a burger joint a ten minute walk from the Navy Yard, so they head there. In a matter of minutes they're seated, with drinks, and Palmer is looking much more relaxed. He fires off a text to Brianna, who is fortunately working late tonight, so doesn't mind him being away.

They settle into a booth and Tim asks, "How do you like being married?"

"How would I know what it's like? I've been married for seven days, and haven't been home before midnight on any of them." Tim blanches a little, not realizing that was going to be a sensitive question for Palmer. "I'm sorry, Tim. I miss Brianna. I miss being home. I miss the honeymoon we were supposed to be on right now. I should be in a hotel room with a balcony overlooking the ocean with my wife. I should be eating room service and forgetting what it feels like to wear pants."

Tim gives him that, I-don't-quite-understand-what-you-mean-or-maybe-I-do-and-don't-want-to look, and Palmer gets flustered. "You know, no pants because..." And then he stops and shakes his head. "Tim, if you didn't it, I don't need to explain."

"I get it. That's actually sort of related to why I wanted to talk to you."

"You want to talk to me about sex? Haven't you ever... I mean you and Abby... right?"

Tim rolls his eyes. "I've had sex. And no, I don't need to talk about sex."

Jimmy grins. "You sure? I'm good at sex."

"I didn't need to know that, Palmer."

"Your loss. So, what, instead of sex, but related to pantslessness, is on your mind."

Tim looks around. Ten minutes from work means this place often has other NCIS personnel in it. But he doesn't see anyone he knows or any badges that look familiar. "Okay, look, I do not want this getting out. You cannot say anything to anyone about this."

"All right." Palmer leans in close, his expression showing that he's enjoying the idea of a great conspiracy.

"I love Abby." Tim says it softly, practically mouthing the words. He expected some sort of shock from Palmer, or at least a bit of startle. But the look on Palmer's face is best described as the kind of expression one wears when told it's sunny outside at twelve noon in the middle of summer. He's never looked less shocked in his life.

"Tim, that's the worst kept secret in the history of secrets. Lee and I was more of a secret than you loving Abby, and everyone found out about that. Everyone knows you love Abby."

"I want to do something about it."

"Oh. That's..." Palmer spends a moment looking at Tim in confusion. The waiter shows up with their food, and he chews a bite of his salad, still looking intently at Tim, confusion not abating.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Okay, it's just that, well, scuttlebutt has it that you and Abby have been doing something about it, for, like six years."

"We've both dated other people in that time."

"Scuttlebutt has it you've got an open relationship."

Tim sits there for a few minutes, unable to even think of what to say to that. Finally he comes up with this, "Let me get this straight, there's gossip that, not only do I have Abby, but every now and again, I go on horrendously uncomfortable dates, often resulting in physical harm to my person, just, what, for kicks?"

Palmer blushes. "Ummm... no. Scuttlebutt has it that you let her go out with other guys to keep her happy, and every now and again you fake a date so that it doesn't look too lopsided."

Tim's mouth, literally, falls open.

"So, I take it that's not true?"

"No, it's not true!

"Not any of it?"

"NO!"

"You two didn't date at all?"

"That part's true. Nine years ago."

"Okay. So, now, nine years later, you want to get back together with her?"

"Yeah."

"So, why are you talking to me?"

"You actually figured out how to build a relationship that survives our work. You know and love Abby, too, so you won't give me idiot advice, and I trust you to keep this quiet, because you know she'll be bummed if it doesn't go off right."

Palmer thinks about that while Tim takes a bite of his burger.

"You're right. Okay, how can I help?"

"How are you doing it? You missed your own wedding for this, and she's, what, understanding?"

"Yes, she understands. And that'll help with Abby, too, she pulls even later nights than you do."

"Okay. So, advice number one, pick the right girl."

"I think that might be advice one to ten thousand and on from there. It won't work with the wrong girl, and no amount of trying will make it work with the wrong girl. I saw the way all of you looked at me when I said I had broken up with Lee. She was way out of my league, and none of you believed it."

"Palmer, all of your girls are way out of your league."

"And Abby isn't out of yours?"

"I know she is, hence nine years of not dating."

"Okay, the point I was making was that Lee wasn't the right girl, and I knew she wasn't the right girl. And the fact that she was beautiful, dangerous, and God, so amazingly sexy, I mean, that woman, the things she—"

"More stuff I didn't need to know, Jimmy."

"Brianna is the right girl."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

"Aren't you worried about long-term?"

"You mean, like divorce, or something?"

"Yeah. Or the spectacularly messy breakup."

"I pretty much got to enjoy the most spectacularly messy post-break-up ever, and honestly, it wasn't that bad. Not saying I'd want to do it again or anything, but... No, I'm not worried about breaking up with her. Everyone talks about pre-wedding jitters, but I was way more nervous about postponing the reception than the actual vows. Once I was holding her hands saying the words, I knew they were true. How do you feel about Abby?"

"I love her."

"Then what are you afraid of?"

"Not being able to keep it going."

"Let me get this straight, you've been in love with her for nine years, without dating, and you're afraid that once you actually start dating that you won't be able to keep loving her?"

"It sounds kind of silly when you say it that way."

"Yeah, it does. So what are you waiting for?"

"Damned if I know."


	9. Waiting

9.

It turns out, what he was waiting for was Abby to get out of mourning.

He works on being a good friend, and as a good friend, who's spending more, quite a bit more, time than is strictly necessary in the lab, he's noticed she's a wreck.

It's true that Abby's Goth isn't about keeping people away. It's not a shield the way his Geek is. If you ask Abby if she's a Goth, she'll tell you no, she's a scientist. He didn't get what she meant by that back the first time he heard it. But he does now. Her Goth is about containing death, and keeping it in a tidy box where she can deal with it, and lately it's gotten out of that box, and it's completely freaking her out.

He knows her parents died in a car accident when she was sixteen. He suspects that's when she dyed her hair, put on her black, and got her Goth on. Maybe if she could immerse herself in death, maybe if she could make friends with it, show it she was a beautiful person, full of love and kindness, it would stay away.

Of course, it doesn't. She keeps up her end of the deal, but it doesn't. It can't.

He wonders sometimes what she was like when her hair was blonde and her clothing unbedecked with skulls and bone.

She's working full out, all the time, keeping her mind busy with cases, trying to keep death away. He works more too, looking for excuses to be in the lab, but he goes home most nights achy and bleary from tiredness, leaving her still in the lab, alone.

So he judges that now is the time to be a good friend, and trying to do anything more than that would be very bad timing.

And so, he waits.

* * *

"Abby."

"Hmrhg?" She's slumped on her desk, and he wasn't sure if she was entirely asleep, or just close to it, but either way, actually laying down would help.

"Come on, it's time to go home. Or at least time to crash in your office."

She looks up at him, eyes bleary, face so sad. "I've got work, McGee."

"Nothing that needs to be done right now. It's after twelve."

"Then why are you still here?"

He can see her getting defensive, and decides right now that she won't react well to the idea that he's been keeping an eye on her and is worried, so a not-too-far-from-the-truth lie is in order. "I went out with Tony for dinner and then came back here to finish up paperwork. I just got done, was on my way out, and saw your car. Come on, I'll take you home if you're too tired to drive."

"I don't want to go home."

"Why not? You've been working late a whole lot lately." This would be a massive understatement. She's been working non-stop lately. He knows she's freaked out from the bombing. And he's been leaving encouraging words to Ziva, because, well, if any of them know how to get through something like this, it's her.

She doesn't answer, and begins poking at her computer. He moves to her side, and turns her chair toward him. "Come on, talk to me."

"I can't. If I talk it becomes real, and if it's real, it can get me."

He pulls her close, wrapping her in a warm hug. "When was the last time you got a full night's sleep?"

"Since before the..." She doesn't finish that sentence.

He kisses the top of her head. "And you're not going to sleep tonight, are you?"

"No."

"Then if you can't sleep, let's see if we can get you some rest and relaxing. Come on." He tugs her gently to her office, and lays out the mat she sleeps on in there, putting Burt at the one end, to act as a pillow. "Lay down, boots, lab coat, and collar off, and I'll give you a back rub."

He turns his back, not sure why, she's not taking off anything particularly interesting, but still, privacy and all.

Burt's flatulent bleat let him know she was on the mat. He turns and finds that she has taken off her shirt.

"Oh."

Her eyes are closed. "It's not a problem is it?"

"Nah. I've seen your back before." In his dreams, when he closes his eyes, during a decent percentages of his fantasies. Yeah, he's seen her back, and he loves it dearly. "Do you have any oil or something like that?" If she's going to take her clothing off, he might as well do a good job of it.

"I've got some hand lotion in my desk."

"Okay. I'll get that." He rummages through the top drawer until he finds a bottle of Jergens Original Scent. Then he heads over to her stereo. Her iPod is in there, and he takes a moment to sort through it for something soft and soothing. Nothing is really jumping out at him as fitting the bill, until he sees The Airborne Toxic Event. Another minute has a playlist set. Sure, it's sad and wistful, but at least it's not a hard thumping beat best played on maximum volume.

The Graveyard By The House kicks off the playlist. It certainly seemed like an Abby song, and it kind of touched on why they were here, so why not?

Tim sits on the floor next to her. If they were dating, he'd straddle her hips. But they aren't dating, so he sits next to her, and twists, a little awkwardly, squirting some of the lotion onto his hands.

He'd call it artificial cherry scented. Not unpleasant, but it's not that distinctly Abby scent either. It's probably a note in the scent he thinks of as Abby, along with the tang of CaffPow, the high, perfumy scent of her fabric softener, a mellow, artificial-cucumbery scent that's her hair conditioner, and a dark, black roses and dragon's blood, scent that he knows is her perfume.

His hands know the routine. Granted they haven't done this, skin on skin, in years, but he's certainly given her back rubs, and received them many times over the years. With the sorts of hours they work, getting time for R&R is hard to do, so they work on each other. He's worked on Ziva, and though he'd never admit it, Tony, on occasion as well. The only one who never seems to need any back work is Gibbs, and Tim suspects that's because Gibbs isn't technically human.

"You know, I've never given Gibbs a backrub." It probably seems like a random opening line, but if he's going to just keep his voice lulling away in a sort of cloud of white noise, it's not a bad start.

"I think you'd have to shoot Gibbs with a tranquillizer dart before he'd let a guy give him a backrub."

She sounds a little sleepy as she says that. He hopes it's a good sign. His hands slide over her skin, long, soft strokes designed to encourage sleep.

"You're probably right about that. Though maybe Fornell..."

Abby giggles a little, and he's happy to see her do that. "There's an image. The two of them giving each other backrubs and complaining about their ex-wife."

"How did they both end up married to the same woman?"

"I think, and I don't know for sure, because Ducky won't give me all the details, but anyway, I think she was married to Gibbs, and things weren't going so hot. So somehow, she met Fornell through Gibbs. Maybe they were working a case together or something."

"You know they're friends, right. I mean, real friends. Tony tells me he's run into Fornell at Gibbs' place a whole bunch of times. They hang out and have dinner at least once a week."

"Interesting. So maybe he's invited his buddy over for dinner. Maybe it's happened a lot. Somehow Mrs. Gibbs falls for Mr. Fornell, and rapidly becomes Mrs. Fornell."

"She left Gibbs for Fornell?"

"I think so. And if not, it looks like there wasn't too long between the divorce and starting things up with Fornell."

"Huh."

A Letter To Georgia started to play. Soft, sweet, slow, and melancholy. Just about perfect for this.

"I love this song," Tim says while he leans more of his weight into her back, stretching her spine.

She sighs, looking like she's enjoying the touch. "I didn't know you liked Toxic Airborne Event."

"You were playing them down here a while back, and I liked it, so I downloaded it when I got home. I got The Indelicates and Stars from you, too."

"So you've raided my soft rock collection."

"Not sure I'd call it soft rock."

"Okay, not 'soft rock', but my not-so-hard music."

"Yeah."

They talked like that, random gossip, little bits and pieces of fluff, for almost an hour. Tim kept trying to let the conversation drift off, but Abby would keep bringing new things up. When Duet ended and the music finally stopped, Tim rested his hands on her shoulders, just letting them sit there for a moment.

"I was kind of hoping you'd fall asleep."

"I know."

"If I tuck you in, will you at least try?"

"If I sleep, I'll dream, and if I dream..."

He waited for her to finish that sentence, but it didn't seem like an end was coming.

"What'll happen if you dream?"

"My nightmares will come back."

He stood up and turned his back to her again. "Put your shirt back on."

A few seconds later she said "Okay."

Abby was sitting up on the mat, twisting her neck, and flexing her shoulders. Tim sat down next to her.

"When I was a kid, there was a series of novels I loved. One of the characters had chronic nightmares. He'd wake up, night after night, screaming. And his brother, who loved him dearly, would offer to stand watch, and keep the nightmares away." He patted Burt. "Lay down, get some sleep. I'll stand watch and keep the nightmares away."

"You'll be Caramon?"

"You've read them?" His eyes went wide. Sure, a lot of people had read the DragonLance books, and Abby was likely to be the kind of person who had done that, he just didn't think she'd still remember them thirty years later.

"Of course. I wanted to be Tika, but I always had a soft spot for Raistlin."

"Everyone did."

"Who were you?"

"Riverwind."

"The man who went on the eight year long quest to win the woman he loved."

"Something like that." He squeezes her hand, signaling he knows this is more stalling. "Now, lay down. Tonight I'll be Caramon and guard your sleep."

* * *

Hours later he jerks awake. He's sitting, back against Abby's desk, his legs draped across hers. He rubs his eyes, twists his very sore neck, and looks up to see Gibbs is standing over him, finger to his lips signaling quiet. Abby's laying on the mat, sleeping.

Tim doesn't see an easy way to get up without waking her up. He's got to get his legs off of hers, and spending the night sleeping sitting up against her desk means that everything below his hips are asleep. Gibbs puts the Caff-Pow on Abby's desk and offers Tim a hand, levering him off the floor.

He limps out of her office after Gibbs. Gibbs slides the door to her office shut.

"Whatever it was you did to get her to sleep, thanks."

Tim's wincing as he turns his head to the left. "Broke my spine, I think. But, yeah, she needed the rest."

"You did good, Tim."

Tim nods, feeling very happy to hear that. "Thanks, Boss."

* * *

A/N: I update these stories on my blog as well as FF. So, if you are interested in the version of this that has links to all the music, feel free to check it out at: characters are my heroin dot blogspot dot com /2013/02/shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_

Also, I'm far enough into this story at this point (109 pages written!) that I know it's going to turn into an M rating soonish. Sooo... it will eventually vanish from the T section, and if you'd like to keep track of it, hitting follow should make that a lot easier.

Thanks!


	10. Almost Disturbingly Well-Adjusted

10.

Things begin to shift when Wolf shows up. Tim's hopeful that maybe Abby might start talking to Wolf, because, from what he can see, she's not talking to anyone. And she needs to talk to someone.

Which isn't to say that Tim, personally, wants to talk to Wolf.

He's in the conference room with someone who calls him "The Pensive Academic" and wants see how he's coping since the bombing. It's not exactly Tim's idea of comfortable, let alone fun.

He's getting ready to fill the hour with generalities when something occurs to him, Wolf might be useful for getting more advice about being in a good place for a relationship. Since actually moving forward on the relationship issue is currently stalled out, he's been doing all he can to try and be ready for a relationship, when the time is right to start moving forward. Maybe Wolf can help with that.

"This conversation is confidential, right?"

"Right. Nothing you say leaves this room. In fact, I barely keep notes, just a few lines to let myself know what is going on, like Dr. Cranston's 'Tribal Names.'"

"Hmmm..." Couldn't hurt to bounce this off someone who studies humans and how they interact for a living. "Well, then... I was frantically downloading the contents of my computer because, apparently, I'm a moron. I could have picked it up and carried it out of the building faster than putting it on a thumb drive." Wolf looks like he's about to say something, and Tim shakes his head, letting him know this is just backstory. "Then I was picking myself up off the ground, looking around at the destruction and thinking how amazing it was that I was alive, and apparently unhurt.

"It was kind of funny actually, I was thinking about how my neck was sore, like I might have pulled it when I fell. And how Tony and Ziva were going to tease me about how I got blown up, and all I ended up with was a sore neck. And then Gibbs was there, and we were talking, and then he was looking really worried, which scared me, because Gibbs is never worried. I looked down saw the glass, looked back up at Gibbs, and he had sort of cupped my face in his hand, and put his other arm around my shoulders, like a hug. It was really tender and gentle, and I almost wet my pants at that point because... well... Gibbs hugging me... If you're a guy and Gibbs is hugging you, you're about to die, so yeah, scared.

"He got me down on the floor and ran off for help, and I decided it was time to stop coasting through life. Time to start moving toward the things I really wanted."

"And what do you really want?" Wolf asks.

"Abby. A family. Are you married?"

Wolf held up his left hand, a gold band was on his forth finger. "For a little over a year now."

"You like it?"

"Yes. I do."

"How did you know you were ready for it?"

Wolf seems to think about that. Tim gets the idea that he rarely gets asked questions like this. Romantic advice probably isn't something that comes up too much being a crisis counselor for NCIS.

"I woke up next to Lisa one morning, and I realized I never wanted to wake up in a bed that didn't have her in it."

Tim nods. "Is that how you knew you were ready to get married, or ready to be with her?"

"They aren't the same thing?" Wolf seems genuinely intrigued with where Tim is taking this.

"My parents are divorced. Gibbs has been divorced three times. Tony's longest lasting relationship is with Ziva, and I think the reason that's true is because they won't let themselves be in love. I'm sure Ducky has half a dozen grand romances, but he's alone now. I don't have a lot of role models who have managed the whole married thing. Everyone I know has been in love, even Tony, but keeping it going seems to be an entirely different thing. Palmer tells me finding the right person is the key ingredient, but I'm worried it might not be. I'm trying to make sure that I'm in a good place to do the forever thing. It seems like forever takes more than just I-love-you and I don't want to mess this up."

"And have you drawn any conclusions from watching the people around you?"

"Almost. I'm thinking you can either be married to your work, or married to your spouse, but not both, because both doesn't work. But Vance is married, and happily from everything anyone can tell, and he's here all the time, too. Plus, even if being married to your job in general is a bad thing, Abby works here as well, so when I'm here, I'm near her. When I'm not in the field, I spend about half my time working in her lab. I reliably see her five days a week, for at least an hour or two a day, and we eat dinner together a few days a week on top of that."

"So, why haven't you two ever..."

"We did. When we first met. It didn't end badly or anything. We never formally broke up. Of course we were never formally dating, either."

"So, basically, one day you stopped having sex, and pretty much everything else about your relationship stayed the same."

"We didn't spend as much time together in the beginning. Though we spend more time together now than we did then. And we're much better friends now. Know each other way better now."

"But you did stop having sex?"

"Yeah. Nine years ago."

"Any relationships since then?"

"Nothing I'd call a relationship. A few catastrophes. A disaster. The inspiration for a horror story I wrote a while back. A few hopeful false starts that crashed and burned like the Hindenburg. These days, when a woman is interested in me, she's more likely to be a suspect in a murder we haven't found yet, a spy for a different government, Tony, or some other mess just waiting to happen."

Wolf ponders that for a moment, and Tim can see either of the two directions he's going to take this. Is he sabotaging his relationships so nothing lives up to Abby, or is he fixating on Abby as the only relationship in recent memory that wasn't a disaster.

"Are you sure you aren't clinging to the idea of Abby as a safe haven?" Choice number two.

Tim thinks about that for a long time. "That's not impossible. But she was the first thing I thought of when I realized I was hurt. She was the one who drove me home from the hospital, and held my hand that night, and when Palmer got engaged, and when other people have talked to me about love, or being in love, she's always the one who comes to mind. We didn't get to go to Palmer's wedding, and he hasn't gotten around to the party, yet, but even before all this, I had planned to get a few dances in with Abby."

Wolf seems to think this makes sense. "So, what have you been doing about this?"

"Nothing romantic. I spend more time with her. But she's hurting, badly, and the last thing she needs is me putting the moves on her. I can wait until she's feeling better."

"You'll think she'll get better?"

"Yeah. It's part of who she is. Kate died. Jenny died. Franks died. The world turns upside down, and we lose people we love. She takes a while to deal with it, cries on Gibbs' shoulder, and eventually comes through it. But, I'm hoping this is the last time Gibbs is the one she cries on."

"Are you jealous of Gibbs' relationship with Abby?"

"No. He might as well be her dad. And she might as well be Kelly." Wolf doesn't appear to know who that is. "Gibbs did have one good marriage. But his first wife and daughter were killed. Kelly was his little girl. Abby was very close to her father, and he died when she was sixteen. She and Gibbs found each other. He needs to be a dad. She needs a dad. So they just work. No, I'm not jealous, just hoping that the next time we have to mourn someone, that I'll be her number one man."

Wolf watches him for a while. "Tim, I think you're going to do just fine."

"Thanks. I can't say getting blown-up was fun, but I think it's been useful."

"How about professionally? Did getting blown up do anything about that?"

"Not really. I'm where I want to be, doing what I want, with people I love. A few months ago, Vance offered me head of Cyber-Crimes in Okinawa, and I turned him down. Gibbs will hit mandatory retirement age in a few years, and we'll have to break up then, but for right now, holding onto what we've got makes a lot of sense."

"You're willing to give up career advancement to stay with the people you love?"

"Yes. I don't do this because I have to. I make enough writing to support myself. I do this because it's important and because I'm happy here."

"You may just be the sanest person I've talked to all day."

"Thanks, I think."

* * *

A/N: Okay, I'm 150 pages into this story now, so I know how it's going to turn out. Specifically, I know it's going to get an M rating in a few chapters. If you're liking it, and want to keep seeing it, hit the follow button, because soon it will vanish from the K-T rated section.


	11. One-upsmanship, Borin, and '80s Cover Ba

11.

He had been planning on spending the night gaming, maybe write a page or two more on the latest novel if gaming did a good job of getting his head clear, and then turning in early. A good night's sleep sounded excellent right about now.

The knock on his door wasn't entirely unexpected, nor was it entirely welcome.

Everyone had been dealing with the explosion in their own way. Ziva stopped holding herself so rigidly. Tim would use the phrase, 'let her hair down,' but that isn't precisely right. Let her hair curl? More accurate, but not exactly a well-known turn of phrase. Abby hadn't been sleeping, though, thank God and her brother, as of last week she finally was. Gibbs had started building something huge. Director Vance was still walking on eggshells. Ducky was fuming with boredom, and Palmer's running around trying to keep his head above water.

And Tony... Tony was suddenly... well maybe not suddenly... this isn't entirely out of the blue, growing up.

From the looks of it, growing up entails not chasing every woman he sees, and spending more time with Tim. Tim isn't sure if this is about avoiding temptation—Tony can't be hitting on women if there aren't any around—or if this is about avoiding rejection—Tony can't get turned down if he's at Tim's.

Either way, he's at Tim's, pacing around, poking delicate computer equipment, complaining about the lack of cool things to do.

"Tony, sit down." Tony flops on the sofa. Tim tosses Tony a PS3 controller and points to the screen. "This is Call of Duty. Those guys are the bad guys. The people running next to us are on our team. In about five minutes, we'll wrap up this mission. Then I'll let them know I've got a noob, and we'll play with them."

"You want me to play—"

"You've got a noob, McTim?" The voice of SandyAUKKG left Tony silent.

"Yeah, Sandy, never played before. He's not even holding the controller right."

"Oh My God! This'll be so much fun. I'll get the girls."

"Girls play this?" Tony whispered urgently to Tim.

"Yeah, Tony, they do. KKG stands for Kappa Kappa Gamma, and AU stands for American University."

"Sorority girls." Tony's voice is hushed and reverent.

"Sorority girls who are going to kick your ass!" Sandy added with a giggle. "Let's play!"

* * *

He's not entirely sure how the thing with Borin started. He and Tony one upping each other certainly had something to do with it. And there was some sort of weird vibe going on with Ziva and Tony, which, honestly, if the two of them would just get over it and start dating, this would be so much easier. But maybe that's why Tony is at Tim's all the time these days. Maybe he too was trying to get his head right before making a big change.

The idea that that may be true, and that Tony would chose to spend time with him in order to help do it makes Tim laugh.

"What?" Laughing while Tony is getting him tickets to a concert so he's got some ammo for asking Borin out was the wrong thing to do.

"Nothing."

"You were laughing."

"You were playing Call of Duty last night. I'm getting my geek claws into you. That's funny."

Tony doesn't seem to buy it, but he does hit enter on his computer and the tickets are purchased.

"Okay McGeek, you're all set up for asking Borin out. Eight o'clock, next Tuesday, you, her, The Generics. Love is in the air."

"If it's anything like my last five dates, she'll be trying to kill me before the curtain call. What are you going to do?"

"I think I'm going to let you have her."

"Let?" Well, there was a snag in the plan. The idea was Tony would ask her out too, and Tim would just stall until after Tony asked, she'd pick Tony, and he'd be out of this with his honor intact and concert tickets.

"You're right; she's too much like Gibbs. It's enough to have him as a boss. I don't need to date him—"

"Date who, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asks as he sweeps in, looking for updates on the case.

"Nobody, Boss."

And then they got back to work.

* * *

Tim was however, sure about how to end the thing with Borin. And better yet, how to end it and maybe, if he played his cards right, end up with a date with Abby, who was perking back up nicely.

There was certainly no way to get out of this with his honor and dignity intact, so, he flubbed it. Badly. And everyone expected him to do it.

Tim is socially awkward, but he's also not an idiot, or seventeen. He can ask a woman out. He's even done so on numerous occasions, and ended up with a collection of, frankly, scary dates. Mostly though, he's shy. He usually doesn't ask women out, which is why he rarely gets shot down.

But, by making himself look like a twit, in front of everyone, he's managed to get tickets to a concert next week, and an excuse to take Abby along without raising suspicion of taking her on a date. Eighties cover bands might not be her favorite music, but he can't think of anyone who will have more fun getting into the spirit of it than she will. Excuses to get dressed up, listen to loud music, and have a nice dinner out is Abby's idea of fun, and his, too, for that matter. So, why not have fun together?

Thus, a few hours after getting horrifically shot down by Borin, he heads to the lab, a spring in his step.

"Hey, Abby, wanna go to a concert with me?" he shouts over Abby's music.

She looks up from the computer and turns the music down. "Who's playing?"

"The Generics. They're an '80s cover band."

"You think I'd want to go see an '80s cover band?"

"Not precisely. I think you'd find getting dressed in '80s clothing, going out, having dinner, and bopping around for a night fun."

"Didn't you just ask Borin to do this?"

"Yep." Tim grinned at her, trying to get the message of 'please go out with me, I love you, but we have to do this kind of quite' across with a look. "But I don't think she gets how fun it is to get dressed up and be someone else for a night."

Abby studies him for a moment, and he can see she's aware that his look means something, but not precisely what it means. "The way Tony tells it, you had your foot so far in your mouth by the time she left, only your knee was visible."

"I'm sure that's how it looked, _to Tony_." He grins again.

"McGee." She's starting to sound suspicious, and Tim enjoys it. She might not have all of the unspoken context here, but she's creeping up on it.

"Yeah?"

"You're grinning. You don't look like you just got shot down." He kept grinning. "Are you asking me on a date?"

"Don't you think it'd be kind of, I don't know, tacky, to ask one woman on a date a few hours after being shot down by another one?"

"Yes." She looked at him for a long minute, and her eyes narrowed, puzzled, but enjoying the puzzle. "You're still grinning, McGee."

"Yes, tacky, very, very tacky." He shook his head forlornly; that grin trying to peek out. "But, asking a _friend_ to go out with you, to do something that that _friend_ would probably enjoy, something the original girl would probably run screaming away from, even if she hadn't been approached by someone with the social skills of, say, a retarded turtle, would in no way violate rule number twelve."

A smile spread across Abby's face, she's got it now. "Uh huh. So, two _friends_ going to a concert and dinner together."

He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. "Exactly."

She turns into the kiss, her lips barely brushing his as he's pulling back. "Yes, I would like to go out with my best _friend_ and see a concert, bop around, and have some dinner."

He didn't think the grin could get any bigger, but it could. "Wonderful."

Later that night, he's on eBay, gchatting with Abby, coordinating looks, hunting for a Member's Only jacket, while she looks for hot pink Converse High Tops.

Yeah, this'll be fun.


	12. Fluffy Kittens

12.

Nothing looks less like a clandestine date than getting dressed up at work, and then openly taking your date out, while inviting everyone else around you to come along, knowing the activity you have planned is so far outside their comfort zones that the merest mention of it is enough to make them want to run screaming away. Short of taking Abby to DragonCon, he can't think of anything Tony or Ziva or Gibbs would be less interested in attending.

Tim has on a pair of cream colored slacks, a turquoise polo shirt, collar up, a cream colored Member's Only Jacket, and matching turquoise top siders. He's halfway between Michael Jackson and Don Johnson.

"Sure you don't want to come, Tony?"

"No, McCrocket, I have no interest at all in... whatever unwholesome activity it is you and Abby are going to do tonight."

"This from a man who dressed up like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and did the voice. We're going to see The Generics. You know, the concert tickets you got for me?" He turned toward Ziva. "Ziva? I don't want any hurt feelings about not being invited."

"My feelings are not hurt." Ziva stepped in front of him studying his outfit. "Why is the collar up?"

"I have no idea. It's just how they wore them back then."

"Ready, McGee?" He turned from Ziva to see Abby. He'd, of course, heard about the outfit, they'd talked about what they'd be wearing, but seeing it was an entirely different thing all together.

Abby had found the neon-pink Converse high tops she'd been looking for. She'd added them to a look of black leggings, a flouncy, neon-pink lace skirt, a wide studded black leather belt, black t-shirt with, and this was a modern twist, a cartoon skull wearing a bow. A black denim jacket finished off the clothing. She'd let her ponytails down, curled her hair, and topped the outfit off with a big, floppy, and, of course, neon pink bow in her hair.

He felt the grin break out over his face, and was glad that Ziva and Tony were behind him and couldn't see it. Tim was certain it wasn't the sort of smile you give someone you're just happy to see.

"I'm ready."

* * *

The concert had been a blast. Sure, it wasn't anything either of them was listening to these days. Abby loves Industrial and Punk, and Tim's on a Mumford and Sons kick with a side of fairly obscure Indie-Brit Bands when he's not listening to jazz. But, the Generics were good at capturing a feeling of the semi-naughty, mostly innocent mid-eighties rock and roll. They knew all the songs well enough to sing along, and just about everyone in the audience, themselves included, sang themselves horse and bopped around to the tunes.

By the end of the concert, neither of them wanted to go home. They were in his car, heading back to the Navy Yard, and Abby's car when he said, "Want to split a milkshake with me?"

"I think you're mixing up your decades."

"I don't know. The fifties and the eighties have a lot in common. Slightly restyle the outfits and we're Gibbs on his first date."

"I don't think Gibbs is that old," she says with a smile.

Tim grins at her. "Okay, we're Ducky on his first date."

She laughs. "Do you think they had 'the 50s' in Scotland? Or was it just an American thing?"

"I'm sure if you don't mind a half-hour long discourse of the socio-economics of post-World War II Scotland, we can find out."

"I can probably skip that."

"Me, too."

She sits quietly for a moment, and then asks, "What flavor shake?"

"You pick."

"Okay. Take us to the milkshakes."

* * *

The hole in the wall diner Tim took them to could have been transported directly from the fifties without any of the intervening years touching it. A gleaming aluminum counter divided the kitchen area from the booths.

He pointed out a booth in the back, and walked with her past the other diners, who looked at the two of them with raised eyebrows. She slipped in, and he surprised her by sitting next to her, instead of across.

"Easier to share if we're next to each other."

"Makes sense."

The menus were already on the tables, sandwiched between the napkin dispensers and the salt and pepper shakers. He handed one to her and waited patiently while she looked over the options.

"Any that are really good?"

"I like the dark chocolate, almond, and cherry one." He reads the menu over her shoulder, seeing that the options are all modern takes on old classics. So, time hadn't entirely passed the place by.

Abby snaps shut the menu. "That sounds good." As she does it, a waitress in a blue uniform comes over. She goes through her spiel telling them about the specials, sounding bored but looking amused at their outfits. Tim thinks she's old enough to have worn this sort of clothing the first time it was popular.

Abby orders, and Tim just nods.

A few minutes later she returns with a tall fluted glass, filled to the brim with ice-creamy goodness, a swirl of whipped cream and cherry on top, and a tall metal glass half-filled with even more.

Tim grabs the straws out of the dispenser on the table, and puts two of them in the milk shake.

Abby takes the cherry off the top, and slides it into her mouth. There's nothing overtly sexual about this, it's just Abby eating a cherry, but Tim is watching, fascinated.

Abby sees the way he's watching her. "Tim, what is going on?" He knows she's serious. She rarely uses his first name, and when she does she's either feeling tenderly toward him, or annoyed. And she doesn't look annoyed.

He takes a sip of the milkshake, closes his eyes, and sighs. He's playing up how good it is, a little. It's really good, but maybe not quite that good.

"You remember how I was really skinny a while back?"

"Yeah?" She'll let him go on this digression, but her expression tells him she wants a real answer soon.

"I gave up carbs, most meat, ate all organic pretty much all the time. And I lost a ton of weight. But you know what? I like meat. I love sugar. And since the explosion," he shook his head, "I've wanted to spend my life doing the things I love with the people I love. I'm done with avoiding or putting off things that are important to me so that I can look better, or more like everyone thinks I should look."

"That sounds very healthy, McGee."

"Thanks." He took a deep breath, and focused his eyes on hers. "I love you, Abby. And I want to be with you. I want to wake up with you and go to sleep with you, and if that means getting an extra-wide coffin, so be it. And I know this is probably the wrong way to do this, that I'm going to fast, but... I don't want to waste any more time. It's been nine years, and for at least six of them, I've known you're the love of my life, and I'm hoping that I haven't just made a huge fool of myself and that you love me, too. So, anyway, having said all of that, would you like to be my girlfriend?"

For a second it looked like Abby was somewhere between laughing and crying, and then she was wrapped around him, kissing him.

After a few minutes, he pulled back. "I've missed you."

"You see me every day." She smiled widely, lipstick smeared a bit, and then bent forward and daintily sipped from the milkshake.

He leaned forward, his lips brushing her ear. "I've missed touching you." Then he placed a warm kiss on her ear, and took a sip from his straw.

Tim's writer sense, the almost outside himself narrator that likes to look at things and see how they are and how they'll fit into his stories, can tell that right that second they're ridiculously cute. They're fluffy kittens tangled in balls of yarn playing in a meadow while unicorns frolic under rainbows cute.

And he doesn't care, because life is good when it's this cute.

* * *

A/N: Okay, this is the last of the T rated chapters. As of tomorrow when I post again, this puppy is going M. It'll stay a thoughtful character driven romance with touches of humor, just with a decent helping of scorching hot smut.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone.


	13. Always Be Prepared

13.

Tim McGee likes sex, a lot. He doesn't get to have nearly as much of it as he'd like, at least, with other people, but the fact that he's not hitting on every woman nearby doesn't mean he's not interested.

But he's also not DiNozzo. Plain, vanilla sex doesn't precisely bore him, but it's not what he's after, either. And, when it comes down to it, an unending string of one-night stands doesn't allow enough time to learn your partner well enough to get into the more interesting variations of sex.

Abby likes sex too. And his guess is that she's gotten a lot more of it over the years than he has. But, still, the whole first few dates thing tends not to lead up to particularly interesting play. And he doesn't think she's gotten much beyond the first few dates in the last nine years either.

But when you've known someone, basically, forever, and you got those first few dates out the way a decade ago, then it's not a big deal if, say, you like being able to stretch your partner out on the bed, tie their hands and feet down, write poems on them with black ink and a Japanese calligraphy brush, pillow book style. Or, if say, one of you has a slight necrophilia kink, then laying perfectly still becomes a very interesting challenge in submitting your own desire to move to her desire for motionlessness. And, if say, both of you happen to enjoy certain costumes, and say, maybe, knot play, and possibly a little D/s, and occasionally all of those things wrapped up in a role-playing encounter, then life is awfully good.

But for right now, all of that is in the future. Right now is a flavor of sex Tim sort of, vaguely remembers from his grad school days. It's true he hasn't been celibate the last nine years, but it's also true that he hasn't been in love with anyone he's slept with either.

Right now, there's a delicious sense of teasing and anticipation. They finished the milkshake, and even spent a good twenty minutes lingering over it, exchanging soft words and quick, or not so quick, Abby's fingers kept drawing obscure patterns on the inside of his thigh as they sat next to each other, touches and kisses.

He dropped her off at her car—going out together is one thing, coming back to work together the next morning is an entirely different story—getting out, walking her the five steps to her door, keeping his distance, because they both know there are cameras in the NCIS parking lot. But the camera can't pick up words, so it misses her saying, "I'll see you back at my place. Bring a condom..." she pauses and thinks about that for a second. "Bring a pack."

He breaks into a massive grin and says. "See you there."

* * *

Being able to focus on traffic is proving to be something of an issue. He's having a difficult time keeping his mind clear enough of the erotic images filling it to even see the oncoming cars. Lucky for him he doesn't have to try to remember where the nearest drug store is. The GPS on his phone takes care of that.

He spends almost a minute standing in front of the condom display, debating between a three pack and a six pack and what exactly each may say about his intentions before he realizes that this is just slowing things down, and that he certainly hopes to have sex with her on a regular basis, so he grabs a twelve pack of assorted styles, a bottle of lube, because everything works better with lube, and is out of there in a one more minute.

The drive to Abby's is long enough to wilt his erection, which he appreciates because he doesn't enjoy wandering about with that visible. Even if the bag from the drugstore is translucent, and the box is too damn big to fit into his pocket, so pretty much there's no way to do this subtly.

He thinks about that as the car slides across the miles to Abby's home. He can just about drive it on automatic.

At one stop light he tears open the box, tossing the ribbed, flavored, regular, and glow in the dark condoms aside. They may all be fun, but they're not for tonight. He snags the two ultra-thin condoms and sticks them in his trouser pocket. He tucks one of the extra-sensitive ones in his sock, after all, his pants might not be within easy reach by the time he wants a condom, so making sure he's got at least one stashed elsewhere is a good idea.

At the next stoplight he tucks the rest of them into his jacket pocket.

One more stoplight, a long one, gives him time to get the lube out of the box, open—Why would anyone put one of those heat sealed plastic wrappers around the lid of something, and then stick a tamper evident seal under the lid? Let alone on an insanely small bottle likely to be fumbled around with by someone half-mad with horniness? Lucky for him, rule number nine means he's well equipped to take care of that.—and tucked into the opposite pants pocket.

He's as ready as ready can be. It occurs to him that this is probably not what his Scout Master meant by always be prepared.

Tim's also less than a minute from Abby's place. He pulls into the parking garage, circling around. This late anyone who doesn't have a reserved place, namely him, and other visitors like him, end up exiled to the very top level. Oh well, nothing for it. He passes Abby's car as he heads up, and sees she's still in it. She smiles and waves, and he continues up, looking for a space to park.

Tim just about jogs down to her, erection returning as he watches her across the expanse of gray concrete and parked cars.

She's out of her car now, leaning against it, waiting for him. The ever present security conscious part of his mind wants to scold her for doing something so dangerous. The part that really, really wants to have sex decides that maybe now isn't the best time for that conversation. And the little bit of his mind that's aware of the fact that he's actually a fairly dangerous guy reminds him of the facts that A: He's armed, and B: She's less than two hundred feet away from a guy who loves her dearly and can get six out of six head shots at fifty meters, with a handgun, anytime he's at the range.

He stops less than a foot away from her. She's looking into his eyes, smiling, and he appreciates how she's almost as tall as he is.

"How many did you get?"

"Twelve."

She smiles with approval. "Ambitious."

"I wasn't plan—" He realizes she's teasing, so he pulls her close, kisses her deeply, his hands cupping her rear, rubbing against her, letting her feel exactly how hard he is. "And we're trying a different position to go with each one."

* * *

The first time was fast. He knows they kissed and petted all the way to her door, and he was entirely wrapped around her as she got her key into the lock. A very long half minute later the door banged open and they just about fell into her apartment.

"Oh, God, Abby!" was the last thing he remembered saying when she landed on top of him. Panting moans, shivered groans, and soft breathy sounds replaced words and punctuated soft, rhythmic slap-squish sounds.

Later, it amazed him how fuzzy the details were. He wasn't drinking, so he should be able to remember everything, but whose hand was where when, let alone in any coherent chronology, just isn't in his memory.

Instead he remembers feelings and almost snap-shot quality images:

Pulling the collar of her shirt to the side so he could nuzzle and kiss her neck. Her hair in his fist, and the silky thinness of the underside against his palm and the almost-crunchy overly hair-sprayed curls of the top between his fingers. Abby naked above him, head back, hair wild, her fingers clenching on his shoulders. The snug slip and impossible hotness of her body sliding onto his. Sitting up, her in his lap, holding her close so they could look into each other's eyes and kiss.

He can remember the feel of her heartbeat and breath, and the incredible, almost bubbly joy that arced through him as they made love. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry, and might have been doing both, but until that moment, he'd never been happier to be with or in another person.

* * *

Later, he's aware of the fact that they've dozed off on the floor, spooned together. He looks up, and sees they're less than seven feet from the front door. It makes him giggle. The fact that she's naked, and he's still got his pants on, well, on the one leg, makes him laugh, too.

He has no idea where his shirt is. Hers is currently doing pillow duty for Abby. He sees one half of her bra to their left, and the other to the right. He doesn't remember ripping it, but he's never been good with bras, and he really doubts she ripped it off herself.

He's on his side, head on his right arm, the left arm wrapped around her. The floor is a bit on the cold side, but he's got no interest in getting up to grab a blanket.

Tim toes off his left shoe, still on his foot, and, frankly, a bit uncomfortable there, and kicks off his pants.

He tries to figure out the time, but that's hard to do where they are. Abby keeps her blinds closed, so there's no light from outside to give him a clue. From his location on the floor, he can't see into the kitchenette, where one clock lives, or the living room, where there's another.

Oh well, as long as it isn't eight yet, the time he normally gets to work, it's all good. And he doesn't think it's anywhere near eight, not yet. With that, he rests his face against her shoulder, enjoying softness of her skin and that uniquely Abby scent, and falls back to sleep.

* * *

He's feeling surprisingly awake and alert when Abby jogs his shoulder, saying, "McGee, time to get up."

Her hair's lopsided, half of the curls have either fallen out or been crushed by her sleeping on them, the other half still held in perfect frozen loops by whatever product she had used. And last night wasn't precisely kind to her makeup; it's coloring parts of her face it was never intended to go near, and not a bit of it matters because she's still the most beautiful woman he's ever seen.

"You're beautiful." She smiles at him, even more beautiful yet. He flexes and stretches, his back, neck, and shoulder less than thrilled at sleeping on the floor. "What time is it?"

"Bit after five."

He nods and sits up. That's early for him, but not horrendously so.

"Wanna get a shower?"

He stands. "Yeah, that'd be great." Tim follows Abby into her room, toward the bathroom when he sees something that stops him dead.

"You got a bed!" It's a huge bed. And he's not sure where she found a lace trimmed black comforter decorated with tiny skulls, but it's very her, and very cool.

"Yeah. I'm tired of being alone. And you know what? Coffins are one to a customer."

Tim isn't sure how to process all of that, so he turns and kisses her. "I'd have shared a coffin with you."

"You're sweet. But how about you try sharing a bed with me?"

"I'd like that. It's nice to have room to stretch out."

"Yeah. It's pretty comfortable, too. I kept falling out of it the first two days. It took a while to get used to something that didn't have sides. But once I had sleeping in the middle of it down, it's been great."

Two more steps had them in her bathroom. She turned on the water, and while they waited for it to heat up, they brushed their teeth. Tim decided not to ask why she's got an extra toothbrush. He doesn't really want to know.

Abby finished and stuck her hand in the shower, testing the water. Tim leaned against the sink, watching her body, and the way it moved, appreciating the glorious long expanse of naked skin in front of him.

"You coming?" Abby asked, half in the shower.

"I hope so." Tim smiled brightly at her, then realized he still had his socks on, so he pulled the condom out of the one, and then took them off.

"You had a condom in your sock?"

"I thought there was a decent possibility I'd want one, and my pants would be nowhere nearby." He took a step closer to her, his erection brushing her hip. "And, look, here I am, no pants, and definitely hoping for sex."

She laughed, took the condom from him, and stepped fully into the shower. He followed a heartbeat later.

Abby's bathroom has one of those combination tub/shower things. It's true Tim isn't much for baths, it's also true that he appreciates the fact that there's more than enough room for both of them in there. But more than that, he's appreciating that it's well lit, and with Abby's scrubby in hand, he's got a good excuse to look at, and touch, all of her.

He likes looking. She's standing under the spray, her head back, eyes closed, the water dancing down her skin. It's a fabulous image, and the sort of thing he often dreams of. It's good to see it live again.

Most of her skin is familiar. But she's had some new work done over the years. The cross on her hip is new. It's about six inches long, ornate, and he can easily imagine it being made of cast iron. He looks at it more closely and notices the letters CT twined amid the roses at the center of the cross.

"Is this for Kate?"

"Yeah. I got it right after she died." He thinks about that for a moment, while squeezing out the sponge, watching the suds slither down her leg.

"Is the one on your back for your parents?"

"Yes."

"Are they all memorials?" he asks, standing behind her, fingers and scrubby lightly tracing over the cross on her lower back.

"Just the crosses." She turns to face him, her hands on his neck. She glides them down his skin. Her lips ghost over his deltoid, caressing his tattoo. Then her fingers skim his scar, still red after five months.

"I was really angry at you when you got hurt. I was sitting on the sidewalk, with an EMT checking me out, and then I saw them run you to an ambulance on a gurney. Gibbs told me you were going to be fine, but he looked really worried, and I was just so mad at the idea that you stayed in that building and got hurt."

"I'm sorry. It was really stupid. I know that now. Next time, if there ever is, someone says evacuate, and I'm getting the hell out. There's nothing on my computer worth dying for."

"Good."

"You were the first thing I thought of when I realized I was hurt." He touches her face, kissing her gently. "I was thinking that I hadn't told you I loved you, not properly. And I was wondering if you were okay, but decided you had to be because there was no way Gibbs would just be walking through if you weren't. Then I kind of passed out. Somehow I ended up in the ambulance, and from there things were pretty foggy until I woke up at my place and you were sitting next to me in my bed." He's staring into her eyes, holding her gently. "I love you. I really do."

She dips her forehead to his shoulder, and spends a long minute holding him, her hands meeting each other at the small of his back. He rests his chin on the crown of her head and enjoys the closeness.

Eventually she says, "No new ink for you?"

"I had thought about putting the first line of Deep Six on my shoulder..." He steps back and touches his left shoulder blade, and then begins to rub the scrubby along her neck and breasts, enjoying the play of suds on her skin, the way they trickled down her flesh, between her breasts, and along the hollow of her stomach. It occurs to Tim he's staring, and hasn't finished the sentence. "...When it made the New York Time's Bestseller's list, but that just seemed too self-congratulatory."

"'L.J. Tibbs never used words when an action would do, so, as he leveled the barrel of his gun at Avi Wazari, words were supremely unnecessary.' It's a good first line, McGee."

"You remember?" He pulls his eyes away from the suds to look in her eyes.

"I've read all of your books. Even the two you've written as T. M. Gee."

His eyes went wide. Those books were a cross between The Dresden Files and Laurel K. Hamilton and starred a not very modified version of Abby.

She looked at him as the water streamed over them, her fingers caressing his face. "McGee, are you blushing?"

"Ummm... probably. No one was ever supposed to know I wrote those. My picture isn't on the cover. I went through a different agent, and a different publisher. Hell, T.M. Gee has a fake biography and is technically a woman. How did you find out?"

She smiles. "I have my ways... But you shouldn't be embarrassed about them. They're beautifully written and scorching hot."

"Well, um... yeah... thanks."

"You should have told me you were using me as a main character, though."

He smiles, looking chagrinned. "I wasn't sure if you'd like being the main character in a series of urban fantasy-mystery-lesbian erotica books."

"I like lesbians." Tim groans at that, blood rushing toward his dick.

"That might be the single hottest thing you've ever said."

"And I thought you loved me for my mind."

He kisses her hard, tongue stroking and slipping against her lip, then kneels, tracing his lips from her knee to hip to belly, and standing, her breasts, collar bone, neck and lips, hands tracing the path of his lips. "God, Abby, I love your mind, I love your body, I love the fact that you aren't freaked out about those books. I just love you."

"Good. You should love me." She smiles as she says that, and he laughs, kissing her again.

Abby takes the scrubby from him, lathering him up. He's definitely hoping this results in sex. Her fingers on his skin, the hot water, the sight of her, kneeling in front of him, are all combining to make sure he's hard as a rock.

She looks up from scrubbing his left foot, her face inches from his erection.

"That looks like it wants some attention."

"Yes, please."

She stands up and reaches for the shower soap, lathering up her hand. Then she steps so that she standing next to him, her full body pressed against his left side. For a moment she stands there, kissing him, then she takes him in hand. He rests his forehead against hers, groans deeply, and then looks down to watch her fist him.

"God, that looks so good."

"Looks good? How does it feel?"

He cups his hand around the back of her neck, kissing her deeply, mouth open, tongues dancing, and then says, "It feels amazing. Feels so good it shouldn't be legal." His hand traced down her back, slips along her butt, and settles between her legs, fingers slipping along wet, slick skin. "It feels as good as that does, I hope."

Her eyes close, and she sags against him. "It's good McGee, really good."

"And this?" He moves a little faster, a little harder.

"Yeah. Just like that."

"Just like that?" He turns her so her back is to the wall of the shower. "How about this?" He kneels in front of her, lips and tongue replacing fingers.

"Better." Her fingers clench in his hair. "That's... Oh... Fuck, Tim! Don't stop that!"

He almost says, "Never, baby." but he'd have to stop to do that. So he doesn't. He wishes he could tell her how good she tastes, and how beautiful she is, but well, he's got better things to do with his tongue right now, so he does them.

Abby climaxing is one of the supreme joys of his life. In this, like everything else, she's entirely her own. There's no pretense, no hiding, no fear that a sound she's making might be undignified, or that the way she's moving might look odd. She's supremely self-confident, and watching a woman like that, knowing that he's giving her that sort of pleasure, rocks Tim's world.

She comes down slowly, and for what feels like a long time, he kneels before her, face resting against her thigh, fingers idly tracing along the crest of her hip, water streaming down them.

He's just about gotten to the point where he's thinking that she must have one hell of a high capacity hot water heater when she says, "How did you get so good at that?"

He looks up at her, grins, and says, "Lots of practice."

She kneels next to him, and gently tugs at him until he's lying in the tub, back against the slanted back rest. "Really?" She's grinning as she straddles him, and reaches up to the shelf where the shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, and condom are.

He's immensely pleased to see she grabbed the condom.

"No, not really. Remember that scene in Revenge of the Nerds, where the sorority girl asks how the nerd is so good at sex, and he says nerds spend all their time thinking about sex?"

"Yeah." She laughs. "Thinking about that a lot?"

He groans a little as she opens the wrapper. Tim is intensely wired into certain sense memories, and his brain associates the sound of a condom wrapper opening, along with that slightly manky smell of condoms with _very_ good things happening.

"Probably my third favorite fantasy." He groaned again as she slipped the condom onto him. Sure, he knows most guys don't like condoms, that they cut down on the sensations, but since he's never had sex without one, he's got nothing to compare it to. And, since he loves to watch, he also loves seeing her hands gently smoothing it onto him.

"What are the top two?"

She eases onto him, slowly inching down, wrapping him in snug, slick, warmth.

He exhales a slow "ohhhh..." and holds her flush against him, reveling in the feel of her on him. "God, that's both of them. Sex in general, and sex in specific with you."

She smiles brightly, and begins to rock against him. He meets her thrust for thrust. "So, all those years, when you're alone in your shower, you've been thinking of me?"

He could quip, something like, 'How do you know I'm in the shower when I do that?' But he's having a pretty hard time focusing on anything besides the sensations she's producing and how much he loves them. So instead he says, "Yesss..." and it kind of slurs into a groan as he pulls her tighter and closer to him.

From there things slide into a vivid awareness of the sight of her body above his and the feeling of her slipping along him. He's not sure if his time sense slowed down, or if they just took a very long time, but it felt like it went on forever, like in some way he was trying to make up for all the lost hours of making love to Abby in one long, exquisite fuck.

Or maybe that's just his writer sense trying to provide meaning and context for what was happening.

Either way, when they were done, when he was lying blissed-out and limp in her bathtub, he was happier than he had been in almost a decade.


	14. Stealth Romance

"You're late, McGee. Have fun at the concert?" Tony asked as Tim walked to his desk.

"Yeah, Tony, it was fun. Ran later than expected." Which was technically true. He'd expected it to be over at ten, but a double encore meant it went until 10:20. "And we got shakes after, so all in all, kind of late night."

Of course, it wasn't the late night that had him running late. It was the fact that it was close to seven when he got out of Abby's tub. (Really, he has to find out what sort of water heater she's got, 'cause the water was still running hot when they got out.)

So, he drove like a maniac back to his place. Grabbed a very fast shower. He was plenty clean after Abby's but he also smelled like her soap, shampoo, and conditioner. And changed into something that Don Johnson wouldn't have worn to work on Miami Vice. That got him to eight, the time he normally gets to work.

Bolting down some breakfast while driving back to the Navy Yard, once again, like a maniac, meant he got there only half an hour late. The sort of thing that could be explained by whacking the sleep button one time too many.

The adrenaline of driving like a maniac is a good thing, because it killed his I-just-got-laid, blissed-out, ultra-relaxed mood that Tony can spot from a mile away.

So, he didn't have Tony hounding him about his sex life. And besides a few polite questions about the concert, everything seemed to be going well on the stealth romance department.


	15. Evidence and Red Lace Up Stockings

Strictly speaking, he's not supposed to be in the evidence lock up. But once he tells the computer what to do, he can't make it go any faster by sitting next to it. Likewise, once he's got his computer, his second computer, and his back-up, auxiliary computer (located in Abby's lab) all looking for things, there's not much he can do besides wait for answers to pop up.

So, he's "officially" down there to offer Abby some help.

But mostly, he's down there, enjoying the view. And, God, what a view!

The black stockings with the red laces up the back are his favorite. They are, without a doubt, the single sexiest piece of clothing in the history of clothes.

And he thinks, just possibly, she knows that about him, and he also thinks, just possibly, that's why she's wearing them, and that delicious red dress, without a lab coat on top of it.

Which is why Tim's been smiling all day.

"McGee."

"Yeah." He's staring at her from across the lock up.

"You're distracting me."

"Sorry."

"No you aren't."

"No, not really." He shakes his head and grins at her.

She's on the opposite side of the car from him, and once again, there are cameras watching. The evidence lock up has 24/7 surveillance. And once again, there's no sound on the cameras, so he knows he can't do anything that looks too out of the ordinary. Two colleagues having a conversation, and goofing about a bit, is nothing out of the ordinary. But he can say whatever he likes.

"Speaking of distractions, do you know what those stockings do to me?" She looks amused, leans forward, her arms together, pressing her breasts up and toward him. "God, or that dress?"

She turns deliberately and walks, slowly, her back, and the backs of those stockings to him, each step flexing her legs and swinging her hips in a way that shouldn't be legal. She grabs something from the other side of the room, a clipboard maybe. Her head turns, and she says over her shoulder, "What do they do?"

Abby returns to the car a few seconds later, clipboard in hand. She holds it in front of her, and he looks at it, then looks at her, realizing what she's doing.

He's now got an excuse to stand close to her.

He scuttles to the other side of the car. Stopping just behind her.

Theoretically, you might say this looks like he's standing behind her, looking over her shoulder. Standing right behind her. God, this is a thousand miles out of bounds and if anyone ever looks at the tape of this they are so busted. And he really doesn't care. She's flush against the Porsche, and he's right against her back, chin on her shoulder, his hands to either side of her on the cherry-red metal of the car.

He keeps his voice low, they may be the only two down there, but who knows who might be heading in their direction. Just because most people take the elevator, doesn't mean everyone does.

"They make me want to bend you over this car, pull them off with my teeth, lick my way back up to your pussy, and then fuck you until we're both senseless."

There are certain words Tim basically never uses. Fuck and pussy among them. They only come out during certain extremely intimate occasions. And while it's true he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be great at dirty talk, he likes how he feels when he says things like that, and he really likes how Abby responds when he says things like that.

She closes her eyes and moans a little, fingers growing tight on the clipboard. He risks very quickly touching her hand, slipping the thumb that's next to her hand along her knuckles, and then strokes his fingers over the car.

"It's a shame this is evidence. Can you imagine leaning against it, one leg over my shoulder, as I eat you out? I can. I can taste you on my tongue, and see that gorgeous, stocking clad leg against my face and over my shoulder. I can feel your heel, poking me in the back.

"Or how about in the front seat? You in my lap, naked except for those stockings. Me deep inside you. You could lean back against the dashboard, and I could use my fingers."

He looks around, sees no one, and says a quick prayer that no evidence goes missing today. Then he takes his hand, drags it up the back of her leg, and cups her pussy in his hand.

"But what I'll have to settle for is getting you soaking wet. And knowing that you're walking around today, counting the minutes until we can get off work, go for a drive in my car, and try everything I just said." He kisses her neck, and pulls away, his phone buzzing, letting him know that one of his computers has found something.

"You're evil."

He smiles. "And you love me."

"Yes, I do."

That stops him dead. She's certainly said I love you before, but it sounds different this time.

"Really?"

She steps up to him, pressing against him. "Really."

Cameras, other people, work, his phone buzzing with new evidence be damned. He pulls her even tighter to him and kisses her. For what feels like a long time nothing held his attention besides the feel of her body on his, but the bonging sound of the elevator forces them to spring apart like matching poles of two magnets, seconds before the doors open. He grabs the clipboard, in need of something to hold strategically, and heads for the stairs, thinking taking the long way back to his desk is a good idea.


	16. A Quicky Against The Door & Love Poems

A long time ago, when he and his sister still lived in California with their parents, Tim started reading Dave Barry.

He remembers one of the books, Marriage an/or Sex, maybe? Probably... Anyway, in one of the books Dave was talking about how people behave differently before they have an affair and during. Before they joke, and flirt, and play up the sexual tension. After they suddenly become all courteous and professional, doing nothing even remotely out of line, and by suddenly acting that way, they might as well post on Facebook that they're sleeping together.

This thought is going through his mind because he's getting dressed for Jimmy and Brianna's belated wedding reception.

It's a Saturday, and they have the day off of work. If it had been a work day, he probably would have given Abby a lift, and then "dropped her back at her car." But it's not a work day. And he lives nowhere near Abby. So he's not giving her a ride.

In fact, he's giving Ziva a ride, because she lives ten minutes from his place, and carpooling makes sense.

But Abby will be there, and he's trying to figure out how he would have acted before they started sleeping together, so he can do a good job of mimicking that. He's fairly certain he wouldn't have spent the entire night dancing with her.

He knows they've been to Christmas parties before, and memory has it they'd usually dance with each other about a third of the time. He'd get more dances than the rest of the co-workers, but not all of them, or even most of them. And he's also fairly certain that there were no soft, slow, cling to each other sorts of dances. Let alone the sort of fast, sexy, make out with your clothing on sorts of dances.

And, of course, this is a wedding reception, so the music might be a tad less... constrained... there's a good word, than what gets played at work Christmas parties. So there will probably be options for fast, sexy dances, and slow cling to each other dances, and honestly, he doesn't want to sit them out.

But he can't for the life of him think of a good way to not sit them out, and keep his relationship with Abby a secret.

He pulls his tie snug, and slips into his jacket. He wonders what Abby will be wearing. The original wedding was formal, and she was supposed to wear some sort of strapless black gown.

But the reception isn't as formal, and he doesn't know what she'll have on, but he's enjoying imagining the possibilities.

His phone chirps, telling him it's time to get going.

The ride to Ziva's is fast. Fortunately there's not too much traffic this time of day. Late afternoon on a Saturday means Silver Springs is pretty dead, and fortunately, when they get into DC it should be pretty slow, as well.

He knocks and waits for a moment. She comes to the door, pulling a coat over a flouncy purple dress with a deep v-neck.

"Hello McGee."

"Hi Ziva. You ready?"

"All set."

"You look nice." And she does. The color works with her hair and skin, setting off her brown eyes. Tim's always aware of the fact that Ziva's a very beautiful woman. But, like sunsets and mountain ranges, her beauty is something he appreciates on an aesthetic level from afar. There's a certain edge a woman needs to have for Tim's libido kicks in, and while Ziva's got edge a plenty, she doesn't have the edge he responds to. Basically, she's gorgeous, but not his type.

"Thank you. You do, too."

"I'm wearing pretty much the exact same thing I wear at work." Sure, he doesn't do a full suit all that often anymore, but his current get up of a dark gray suit, with a maroon and gray striped shirt and black tie isn't really all that different from how he usually looks.

Ziva looks down at herself. "I once wore something kind of like this to work. I was undercover as a cabaret singer."

"You can sing?"

"I can sing."

Tim smiles. "Cool. Why were you pretending to be a cabaret singer?"

"You did not hear this story?"

"If I did, I've forgotten it."

"I think you'd remember it..." Ziva began to tell him about her last operation for Mossad, and after about ten minutes, when she got to the infiltrating part Tim started nodding. That part he was familiar with. By that time they were well on their way to the Adam's House Hotel, favorite haunt of Tony DiNozzo Senior, and location for the Palmer wedding reception.

They chatted about random bits, the last case (Captain Wescott), slightly belated Thanksgiving Dinner at Gibbs' house (who knew Fornell could cook?), and her mystery date (the opera for her sister.) That got them to about ten minutes from the hotel.

At a stop light Ziva says to Tim, "I always love weddings. There's such a sense of hope."

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"There's so much possibility at a wedding. So much that can happen." She's looking intently at him, and he's flummoxed, not sure what she's trying to tell him.

"I like weddings. Don't get to go to a lot of them, but I like them." Whatever it was, he didn't get it. He can see that from how she's looking at him.

"It's good you like weddings. I hope this will be a good one, for both of us."

Yeah, she's definitely trying to tell him something. And for a second he almost says, 'Do you mean with Abby?' but he can't quite say that, even if it does look like she's hinting in that direction.

"I think it'll be a good one. Food should be good. Palmer's got decent taste in music. Abby's going to give the Best Man's toast, so that should be amazing to see. We'll get to spend a day relaxing with people we love, there are a lot of worse ways to spend a day."

She squeezes his hand and smiles. "Yes, there are."

* * *

On the way in, it occurs to Tim that this is a hotel. As a hotel, it has rooms. And if it has rooms, at some point he and Abby could be in one of those rooms, either sneak away or maybe spend the night. Sure, he has to get Ziva home, but he can come back later...

"John!" he says brightly and waves at one of the guys at the front desk. The guy looks surprised, probably because his name isn't John and he's never seen Tim before, but waves back. "Ziva, you go in without me. I'll be there in a minute. I know him from high school."

Ziva stares at him, looking like she isn't buying that at all, and then nods. He heads over to "John" and asks for a room. Five minutes later he's got two key cards tucked into his pocket.

* * *

Finding the ballroom isn't too difficult. There are two on this floor, but only one of them has a horde of NCIS employees milling about outside of it.

Apparently they're a little early. And apparently a little early is a common trait among NCIS employees because he sees about twenty people he knows. He drifts over to Ziva, Tony, and Gibbs, apparently Ducky and Abby are off somewhere with the rest of the wedding party, doing God alone knows what.

"So how does this work?" Tony asks. "Is it a wedding? Or a party?"

Tim knows the answer to this, having listened to Abby talking about it. "They're re-doing their vows for everyone who wasn't at the wedding, but skipping all of the readings/songs/church stuff. Which means we don't have to listen to Palmer sing Wind Beneath My Wings to Brianna. Then there's dinner, dancing, cake cutting, party stuff. And after that they're finally heading off for their honeymoon."

"Where are they going?" Ziva asks.

"Abby tells me Aruba. Apparently they both like to snorkel."

"Huh. Didn't know that about Autopsy Gremlin."

"Me either," Ziva added.

"It's like a different world under there. All green and blue and cool. Everything is soft, rippling, fluid. Sometimes the fish come right up to you and nibble on your fingers."

All three of them stare at Gibbs in amazement when he says that.

He shrugs. "I've been on a lot of honeymoons. Snorkeling is a popular honeymoon thing to do."

The doors open, saving the three of them from having to come up with a response to that.

* * *

Jimmy, Brianna, her maid of honor, and sister? maybe, she looks an awful lot like Brianna, as well as Ducky and Abby are standing in a small semi-circle in the middle of the dance floor.

They wave everyone over to come join them.

Tim thinks he should be looking at the Palmers. He really should. But he's not. Abby's wearing a little slip dress. It's white, or light pink maybe, with a sheer black overlay. Pink lace trims the knee-skimming hem and neckline. Her hair is up in one long ponytail. She's wearing what he thinks is a black pearl necklace and bracelet, instead of her usual collar and wrist cuff. It's very soft, and very pretty, and he can't pull his eyes away from her.

Several minutes go by while more guests file in and come to stand around Jimmy and Brianna.

And, after a few more minutes, Ducky begins to speak. Tim's not really paying attention. He's getting the basic idea, that the point of a wedding is a public declaration of the vows. It's not just about the death 'til us part bit, but about letting the entire world know you intend to do it. Since the first time they did this, Ducky and Brianna's parents were the only witnesses, they were going to re-pledge their vows to each other and in front of all of their family and friends as a sign of this as something everlasting and public.

The vows are long and flowery, and, honestly, sweet enough to inspire diabetic coma. Tim's not paying too much attention to them, either. Love, honor, cherish, forsaking, forever, that was really what it all came down to. Tim stares at Abby, and condenses it down further, making the promise in his own mind as her eyes caught his. _As long as I draw breath, I will be here and I will love you._ She smiles at him, and he doesn't know if she's got an idea of what he's thinking, or just noticing how intensely he's watching her. Either way, he smiles back. He's about to mouth, I love you, when Brianna finishes her vows, the Palmers kiss, and everyone cheers.

* * *

To the surprise of just about everyone, himself included some days, Tim actually can dance. He's not particularly good at anything that requires fast, unexpected physical dexterity, but anything he can study and practice, he can pick up, and quickly. So, yeah, he was a bad dancer at first, and a bad shooter, and he sucks at most computer games for the first two hours if he can't customize the command keys, but once he knows what happens when, he's golden.

So, yes, if you drop him in the middle of a mosh pit, or say, most clubs, Tim will flail around with the spastic grace of an octopus being electrocuted. But, if you happen to have music that's in the range of speeds he can process easily (4/4 time or slower) or happens to be a dance he knows (Waltz, fox trot, rumba, swing, or salsa: he took ballroom dance for his gym credits at John Hopkins.) Tim is actually a decent dancer.

And well, a family wedding tends to have music in the range he can cope with, and occasional songs that are attached to actual formal dances.

Jimmy and Brianna started off the dancing right away. And then vanish with the wedding party for photos. The dinner is a buffet, so everyone can eat or dance as they see fit, and in the first hour Tim mostly bounced between the buffet and friendly dances with Ziva, a few other co-workers, and two women he thinks are Brianna's sisters.

Then Palmer came around, collecting him, Ziva, Tony, and Gibbs, for more photos. And sure, it could be the fact that if she's wearing heels (which she is), that Abby's the same height Tim is that has them standing next to each other, often with his arm around her, in all of the photos, or it could be something else, but somehow the photographer keeps sticking them right next to each other.

Which he doesn't mind.

He makes a mental note to ask for a copy of the goofy one where he's holding Abby, Jimmy's holding Brianna, and Tony has Ziva, and they're all making faces at the camera. And, even though he isn't in it, he also wants a copy of the one where Gibbs has his arms around Abby and Ziva. He doesn't remember the last time Gibbs looked that happy. And yeah, it probably isn't the stealthiest move, but the photographer wanted one of him with Abby and Ziva, so he's got an arm around Ziva, and he's kissing Abby's cheek, both of the girls grinning. He categorizes it under flirty stuff he'd do if he wasn't sleeping with Abby.

Finally, the photos wind down, and he accompanies Abby back to a table. "Here, you sit down. I'll get you something to eat."

"Thanks, my feet hate these shoes."

He looks at the little black satin pumps. "They're cute."

"They are, but they pinch."

"Well, sit down, let your feet rest, and I'll be back with food in a minute."

And while it's true that he's being nice getting her some food and letting her sit down for the first time in two hours, he's also got an ulterior motive. He fishes one of the keycards out of his jacket, and palms it between his hand and her glass.

He hands her the glass carefully, and she takes it, slipping the key into her purse almost like they had practiced it.

"Four seventeen." He mouths it to her, not adding any sound, knowing that she can read lips well enough to get what he's saying. She nods minutely and mouths back, "Thirty minutes," before saying out loud, "What did you get me?"

He pointed out the things on the plate, naming them. Okay, Chicken Marsala is probably hard to identify by sight, but she can probably figure out broccoli without him expounding on the concept, but he does anyway.

Jimmy and Brianna came over, and exchange small talk with them. A song Tim knew he could dance to came up. So he asked Palmer's bride, "Can I have this dance?" Brianna lit up in a wide smile.

"Of course."

He's pretty competently swinging with Brianna to 'In The Mood' when she says, "Jimmy tells me that you're working on starting a relationship with Abby."

"Yes."

"How's it going?"

"Started up and going well."

"Not dancing with her is driving you crazy isn't it?"

"I'll get some dances in with her, too. Just not the ones I want."

Brianna nods at that. "You know, there's a hallway behind this ballroom. You can hear the music, but there's no reason to be back there, unless, say, you wanted a moment or two alone."

Tim smiled at her. "You're a natural at this secret romance thing."

"Thanks. You two should join us for lunch some weekend."

"I think we'd like that."

The song wrapped up. The DJ started blathering away about this next one being dedicated to all the lovebirds out there. "Head back there, and she'll be waiting." Tim looked around and realized that Abby wasn't sitting at their table talking to Jimmy any longer.

* * *

'I'm Amazed By You' by Tim McGraw is certainly a wedding song. It just wasn't one Tim was expecting to be gently reverbing though the back hallway, but as songs for dancing with Abby went, it was a fine one.

"Hi." He smiled at her, seeing her leaning against the back wall, hands behind her back, waiting for him.

"Hi, back." He steps in close to her and kisses her. She kisses him back and then breaks away. "Palmer's your partner in crime?"

"He's good with secrets."

"And apparently he and Brianna thought we might want one romantic song to ourselves."

"Yeah. So, would you like to dance with me?"

She grins, a wide, bright Abby smile, one that makes him feel light and bubbly from his toes to his ears. "Yes, I would."

He takes a step back and offers her his hand. She takes it, and he pulls her to him. His fingers twine with hers and settle against his chest. His other hand anchors at the small of her back, and her free hand lands on the back of his neck.

She's ditched the heels, so she's a few inches smaller than him now. Just enough so that her head can rest against his shoulder, and he can rest his cheek on hers.

There's nothing particularly fast or complicated about this. They're mostly just two stepping. Tim's humming along with the music, only half-aware that he's doing it, but it seems fitting somehow.

It's a fairly short song, and it wraps quickly, leaving them alone in a hallway with some loud peppy music blaring away.

He looks up and says, "You know, unless I'm mistaken, that's an elevator over there."

She looks over, still pressed against him. "That does look like an elevator."

"I bet it could get us to the fourth floor."

"I'd imagine it could do that."

"Wanna go upstairs?"

Another huge smile. "I've got to give the best man speech in twenty minutes." He grins at her and kisses her forehead. She pulls his head down to kiss her lips. "This is so naughty. Yes!"

* * *

The elevator takes approximately forever and a half to get down to them, and then get them back up to the fourth floor. And of course, their room is on the opposite side of the hotel. They hurry through the hall, holding hands, his index finger rubbing against her wrist.

He slips his key into the door and swings it open. It's a suite. He didn't pay much attention to that when he reserved it. Mostly he was just thinking, _place to get naked with Abby_, and all other details were rather moot. They're in a sitting room. There's a sofa, tv, minibar, coffee table, no bed.

And then that didn't much matter because he's back against the door with Abby pressed against him kissing intently.

"How long do you think we can stay?"

She looks away for a second to find a clock. "Ten minutes? I've got to get down there for my speech soon."

"I can do ten minutes." Tim grins.

"Somehow I figured you could." She unzips him while he turns them. This'll work a whole lot easier if she's back against the door.

He kneels in front of her, pushing the skirt of her dress up. Tugging off her panties off with his teeth lets him use his hands to grab a condom and get it on. He stands quickly, lifting her, pressing her back against the door, and slipping into her.

If it wasn't for the fact that the searing pleasure of doing it has wiped all thought out of his mind, he'd be pretty proud that he managed to pull that off in one easy move.

It's not a position he can hold for long. She's smaller than he is, but she's still a good hundred and thirty pounds, if not more. Her legs are wrapped around his hips, and his hands are holding her under her ass. They're kissing frantically, moaning, and his thrusts are slamming her into the door. Anyone on the other side can figure out what's going on in this room.

And all of that adds to it. It's got to be fast. It's dangerous and exposed and just, as she said, so, so naughty. Her feet are digging into his back, and her hands clinging to his shoulders, her teeth nipping his lips, making him feel wicked and sexy and just gloriously fine.

He knows he'll be done in less than a minute, and he suspects she's not that close yet. So he speeds up, goes full out, letting his orgasm sear through him, and bare seconds after his body stops pulsing he drops to his knees again, tonguing her, fingers replacing his dick, pressing her g spot, knowing that's his fastest option. He's awfully glad she's not wearing the shoes, as she climaxes the foot she has on his shoulder twitches hard, her heel pounding into him. With shoes he'd be looking at a ripped jacket and maybe a lacerated shoulder.

Having to miss the best man speech to get stitches would have done wonders for the whole "stealth romance" concept. He's smiling about that as he gently licks her a few last times, feeling her come down.

When she stops quivering, he stands up again, leaning against her, still breathing fast. "I've got the room all night, and tomorrow. Feel like spending the night with me? Getting room service breakfast? Lay around in bed all day? Watch trashy TV and make love until we can't stand up anymore?"

She kisses him, hard and long. Licking herself off his lips. He kisses back, sucking her tongue, reveling in her on him, and how ridiculously sexy it is that she's willing to do it after he goes down on her. Then she pulls back. "I'd like that."

"Good."

"I've got to take Ziva home, but once I do, I'll come back, and we'll have the rest of tonight and all of tomorrow together." He pushes back, and leans against the wall, resting, his knees are feeling wobbly. Abby starts to straighten her dress, slipping on her panties. "Dresses are a lot easier than suits. You just shimmy a little, and you're back to normal."

"Sometimes it's good to be a girl." She checks her makeup in the mirror and touches up her lipstick. "Presentable?"

He stands up and kisses her, gently, lips barely brushing hers. "Perfect."

"Okay, gotta get back down there and find Palmer. Almost time for me to toast the happy couple."

"I'll be down in a few more minutes. Don't start without me."

"Never. I want you to hear it."

Abby looks over her shoulder, blows him a kiss, and heads into the hall. Tim pulls off the condom, knotting it tidily and tossing it in the wastebasket. He wipes off, rights his clothing, makes sure he's not covered in her lipstick, and notices something. There's a table next to the wastebasket, and next to the phone on the table is a notepad.

For Tim, writing is as much a tactile experience as a mentally creative one. It's an entirely different headspace than the rest of his life, one centered on the merging of a creative mind and a physical effort. He works on a keyboard pretty much all the time. He keeps his notes on his smart phone. Almost his entire life revolves around manipulating digital information, so when he writes, he goes old school, totally divorcing that part of his life from his work life.

The feel of the keys moving under his fingers, the rhythm of hitting the return lever, manually advancing paper are all part of putting him in the place he needs to be to create fiction. It's a physical meditation that binds and encourages narrative flow.

But for poetry he goes another level further back. For free writing, for associative verse, thoughts and phrases that depend as much on sound as meaning, for that, he goes for pen and paper.

He wasn't planning on writing when he got to the reception. But as he's tucking his shirt back into his pants, he's feeling like he might want to at some point, so he grabs the pad, and heads back down to the reception.

* * *

It doesn't look like anyone noticed he was gone. He gets a drink, scotch neat, and settles in at the table his crew claimed as their own. He's the only one sitting at it right now. But, as Abby stands next to Jimmy and Brianna, gently clinking her ring against her glass, getting the attention of the other guests, Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony drift back and sit down.

"I understand it's normal for the best man's speech to take a few kind-hearted shots at the happy couple, but... Jimmy was just too easy a target, and I couldn't narrow it down to just a few. So instead this'll have to be sincere." She turned to face Brianna. "The day after your first date, Jimmy walked into my lab and said, 'How do you know if you're in love?' I told him, 'Can you imagine the rest of your life without her?' and he said, 'No.' So I kissed his cheek and said, 'Congratulations, you're in love.' About a year after that, he floated down into my lab one day, all glowy, and told me that you loved him, too." She caught Tim's eye, held it long enough for him to know this bit was for him, too, and then put her arm around Jimmy. "And since then, Jimmy's been a glow. You walked into his life, and it changed for the better. You've brought him a sort of happiness I don't think he even imagined could exist. We're pretty close knit at NCIS, and by loving our friend, brother, you've made him happier, and you've made all of us happier as well." She kissed Brianna's cheek. "Thank you. And welcome to our large, somewhat bizarre, family."

Everyone clapped.

Then the caterer brought the wedding cake over to them, and Jimmy and Brianna cut into it. He fed her a piece nicely, no cake shoving. And she placed a small piece between her lips and kissed him with it, much to the delight of everyone in the crowd.

Abby returned to their table a few minutes after that. Tony and Gibbs praised he speech. Well, Tony praised her; Gibbs kissed her forehead as he stood up to get some more bourbon. But for Gibbs that's praise.

The caterer brought around cake, and all of them ate, chattering away about the wedding, the food, the music, how happy Jimmy and Brianna looked. Traditional wedding chatter. Tim stayed quiet, content to just eat and watch, enjoying being surrounded by people he loved.

Abby finished and the music kicked back up. She headed off to dance, and the rest of the crew drifted off.

Tim watched them, made sure they were all busy, and then he leaned back, took another sip of his scotch, and settled in to watch Abby and write.

For Abby: Dancing

Everyone else is busy right now.  
Ziva and Tony are dancing with each other.  
Gibbs is trying to fend off Jimmy's father-in-law.  
Ducky's telling a story.  
Jimmy's dancing with Brianna.  
Vance is dancing with his wife.  
And you're dancing, too.  
None of you are watching me  
Which means I can sit back, sip my drink, and watch you.  
You're dancing like you own the music  
Like the reason music exists is to bow down and worship at your red tipped toes  
(I know you think I don't notice details like that  
but I do)  
Ducky joins you, and you're both swinging through a fast song  
setting the floor alight.  
For a guy who had a heart attack less than half a year ago  
he can really move.  
You both look happy.  
He's grinning.  
You're laughing.  
And I watch.  
I might be a little buzzed while I write this—  
not from the scotch—  
from watching you move  
And the sense memory or your skin on mine  
The music slows down, easier, classic, and Gibbs cuts in  
He loves you so much  
He holds you like you're his north star.  
Like he's the father of the bride, giving her away  
(What do you think? Maybe a year or two from now?)  
Lyrics: Yes you're lovely, with your smile so warm, and your cheek so soft, there is nothing for me but to love you, and the way you look tonight.  
Is it terrible that I want to cut in?  
That I want this song with you.  
Because you are lovely  
And I love you  
And the way you look tonight  
And I want to hold you close, cup your face in my hand, and look into your eyes  
while swaying through a slow song like this one.  
Tony and Ziva are heading over  
So I have to stop  
But I promise, next time we dance as lovers, it won't be in secret.

He folds the paper in half quickly, tucks it into his pocket and gets himself back into small talk mode.

"What are you writing?" Tony asks as he sits next to Tim and takes a drink of his beer.

"Code. I just thought of a way to improve search efficiency by about ten percent when I go hunting through our archives."

DiNozzo shakes his head and slumps back into his chair. "Here we are, at what is likely to be the romantic highlight of our year, surrounded by beautiful women—" And with that he turns to Ziva and looks her over. She slaps his shoulder gently. "—and you're writing code?"

Tim shrugs. Gibbs and Abby come back to the table and for a few minutes they just talk, then Mambo Number Five comes up and Tim decides this one is fast enough that he can dance it with Abby.

He takes her hand. "Come on, dance with me." And leads her out. "Can you salsa?"

"I can learn."

He rests his hands on her hips and talks her through the steps, showing her with his feet and then they go for it. Sure it's a little clumsy and a bit off beat, but it was fun and they were giggling by the end of it. The music stayed fast, Dashboard by Modest Mouse (Tim wonders idly at the DJ's playlist, but it's working, so he's not going to complain.) so they keep at it, and a minute or two into that song, Ziva bopped out to join them. She apparently did know how to salsa, so she stood behind Abby, Tim in front, and the three of them danced together.

Gibbs joined them, spinning Ziva off in a quick and low dip followed by some footwork that, frankly, left both him and Abby stunned. Ziva rose to the challenge, and she and Gibbs left Abby and Tim in the dust.

"And that's what happens when he actually swallows the alcohol." Tim laughed. "I can't believe he can dance."

"I can."

"You'd believe he could fly."

"I would if he did it in front of us."

He smiles at her, wanting to kiss her very much.

* * *

An hour later, Brianna tosses the bouquet and a minor scrimmage occurs among her various female relatives over it. From there things are starting to break up. Tim excuses himself and scoots back up to the fourth floor. They didn't even make it to the bedroom the first time, so he has to open a few doors before he finds the one that leads to it. Once he does, he writes Abby's name on the poem, and places it on the pillow for her.

Then he heads back down and finds Ziva, getting her coat. He grabs his own coat and heads over to her.

"Time to head home?"

"Yes, I think so." She looks around for a moment, and sees that Tony and Gibbs are heading out together, backs toward them.

"You know, I can get a taxi home."

Tim tucks his arm into his coat. "Why would you want to do that? That's a what, hundred dollar ride?"

"Just, if you wanted to stay late. You don't have to give me a ride home."

"Why would I want to stay late?"

Ziva stares at Abby, who is heading to the elevator. Tim turns and sees what she's looking at.

"That obvious?"

"Most people look at the bride and groom during the vows, not the best man."

"Wonderful. We're trying to keep this quiet."

"I know, and I will keep your secret. I doubt anyone else noticed. I doubt anyone else thought to look."

"Why did you?"

"You and I were driving to go get a suspect. I noticed you smelled like Abby. Then I thought about it and realized you had been in the lab right before we left. So I decided to keep watch. The next two times you came up from visiting Abby alone, you smelled like her. But when you came up from visiting her with someone else, you did not smell like Abby. So obviously it was not just a matter of being in the lab. You had to get very close to her to end up smelling like her."

"Thank you for keeping quiet. We don't want everyone talking, not yet, at least." He hands Ziva his car keys. "She can give me a ride back to your place. No need for you to get a cab."

"Thanks."

"I'll be by Monday morning."

Ziva's eyebrows rise, and she looks pleasantly surprised. "You and I will talk about this again?"

"At some point. Without Tony."

"Agreed. McGee?"

"Yeah?"

"Were you really writing code?"

"I'm at a wedding watching the woman I love dance, you think I'm gonna write code?"

"No."

He nods. "Monday then?"

"Monday."

* * *

Abby didn't expect him for close to two hours, that gave Tim a little time to plan. For example, he'd already used the only condom he'd had on him, so restocking, which he would have done if he had driven Ziva home and then come back, was definitely in order.

He calls room service and orders breakfast for the morning, and champagne, roses, and chocolate covered strawberries for now.

He knows he's going overboard, but he's enjoying it. He's never had a girl waiting in a hotel room for him, let alone in a four star hotel when he's had enough money to spoil her.

They didn't get enough time to dance with each other, so doing something about that seems like a good idea, too.

He heads to the hotel bar, orders another scotch, he doubts he's going to drink all of it, he's already feeling pretty mellow, but he's not the kind of guy who can take up a seat in a bar and not buy a drink. Tim sips his drink and then takes out his phone. He spends a good twenty minutes setting up a play list for the weekend. Well, a series of playlists. There's sex songs, dancing songs, and just stuff to listen to in between.

Tim heads over to the gift shop and finds what he needs: toothbrushes, toothpaste, condoms, lube, and a razor.

The cashier smirks at him when she sees his purchase, and though he feels like he'd normally be flustered by this, the fact that he's completely anonymous here means that he doesn't care. He shrugs at her and says, "It's gonna be a good weekend." She giggles while sweeping his credit card.

"Have a good night, sir."

He smiles. "I plan to."

Tim heads up, and lets himself into the room quietly. Room service has already come and gone. He sees the champagne and chocolates are on a tray on the coffee table in the sitting area. The roses aren't there.

The door to the bedroom is open, and Abby's shoes are tidily sitting next to the door jam. He toes off his own shoes, leaving them next to hers, and drapes his coat and jacket over the sofa. He tucks the bag from the gift shop into his back pocket.

He peeks in, sees the flowers on the pillow, her dress, panties, and bra hanging on the closet door, and the poem is missing. He hears water running and sees the door to the bathroom is open, as well.

She's sitting on the edge of a tub big enough for them and three of their best friends, naked, back to him, the fingers of one hand testing the water, the other hand holding the poem, as she reads it. Bubbles foam on the water, kissing her fingers.

He loosens his tie, undoing the top button, leaning against the door jam, watching her. She's angled so he can see her face in the mirrors behind the tub. He settles in to watch her respond to the poem.

Abby's smile comes slowly, spreading across her face, gently. Her eyes are soft, a look of tenderness in them. He thinks he knows which one of the lines makes her close her eyes and inhale quickly. A few seconds after that she folds it closed, places it on edge of the tub, still smiling.

"You are so beautiful."

She jumps a good two inches when he does that.

"McGee, don't creep up on me like that!"

"I wanted to watch you."

"Like what you see?"

He crosses the few steps to where she is and kisses her gently. "Yes, very, very much."

She kisses him back, fingers unknotting his tie, and undoing the buttons on his shirt. "Did you mean that?" she nods toward the poem.

"Every word."

She nods again, kissing him again. "Then yes, I think it's a good idea."

He knows what she means. So he cups her face in his hand, looking into her eyes, and says, "I'll ask you properly one of these days."

She nods again, skimming his shirt off. "You're early."

"Ziva knows." She helps him strip out of the rest of his clothing while he explains what happened. He steps into the tub, and a moment later she's in his lap, touching his face, looking at him with a deep, gentle tenderness that makes him want to melt.

His one hand cups her neck, and the other rests on her hip. For a moment he sits there, cuddled with her in warm water and soft foamy bubbles. "It's funny, you know? I'm good with words. I mean, I get flustered, you've seen that, but I can usually find the one I need when I need it." He traces her lower lip with his thumb, which she nibbles gently. "But I can't find one big enough, grand enough to explain how this feels."

"Then tell me you love me, and it will have to be enough."

"I love you so much, Abby." He kisses her, trying to push the feelings into his touch. "So, so much."

She kisses him, and he felt that same desperate hope to push feeling into a tangible action in her touch. "I love you, too, Tim."


	17. Monday

The great thing about Ziva is that she gets up before dawn, so if you need to head over to her place around six in the morning to pick up your car, you don't have to worry about waking her up.

Abby stops her car in front of Ziva's building, and he kisses her, lips lingering on hers, debating seeing if he can get her to call in sick with him and spend another day in bed. She pulls back and smiles at him. "See you in a few hours?"

"Yeah." One last fast kiss, and then he's out of the car, heading up to Ziva's apartment to get his keys.

He's in the elevator when he gets a text. _Wrapping up run. Will be there in a minute._

If you were to ask Tim, prior to last weekend, to describe himself, the word sexy would not have crossed his lips. If anything, he's always assumed that he could be nice and friendly and maybe women would get to like him enough as a person that they might then decide to sleep with him, and having done so, figure out that he's actually kind of good at this sex thing.

But the idea that someone might want him, just off the bat, for sex, was nowhere in his self-concept.

It is now. After thirtyish hours of sex, napping, food, and more sex, after making Abby climax so intensely she scratched his back bloody, bit his chest so hard it bruised, and then blacked out, he's feeling like he might indeed qualify as sexy.

And it shows.

He's leaning against Ziva's door as she comes down the hall. She waves, and he waves back, languidly. She pauses mid-step, and looks him over intently.

"McGee, you cannot go to work like that," she says when she gets close enough to talk.

He rubs his face; he is a bit whiskery. He's got the top three buttons on his shirt undone, and the tail end of his tie is hanging out of his pocket, which is a lot more casual than he usually is. But he was planning on changing his clothing and getting a shower before going to work. "I was going to shave and change after I got my car."

"That is not what I mean. You look like the cat that ate the canary."

"Cat that got the cream?"

"Either way, you look like a big, fat, sassy cat that just ate something it really enjoyed and wasn't supposed to. You have practically got feathers sticking out of your mouth."

He grins. "It was a good weekend."

"I can see that. And so will everyone else. You need to act more itchy."

"Itchy?"

Ziva thinks about that. She's fairly sure it's the right word, but decides to try another one that might be closer. "Twitchy? You usually look like you're afraid you're about to get caught doing something you shouldn't. Or like a gazelle in one of those nature shows about lions. Right now you look like one of the lions."

He grins again, liking the idea of being one of the lions. She shakes her head.

"Tony will take one look at you and _know_. You practically have, I HAD SEX tattooed to your forehead."

That's gets through. She opens her door, and waves him in. He tries to look a little less relaxed and confident and muffs it entirely.

"A little more itchy, not paranoid schizophrenic."

"I don't think I can do this."

"You are going to need to do something." She hands him his keys.

"I'll tell him I let you drive my car. That should keep him distracted until Thursday, at least."

She laughs at that. "It is a nice car. I had never driven a Porsche before. It handles very nicely at over 120." Tim blanches. Ziva smiles, and he hopes she's kidding. "So, shall we talk now? No Tony around."

"Sure." He follows her into her kitchen area. She pours them both coffee. Ziva's not quite as picky about her coffee as Gibbs is, no one is, but she's pretty close. Hers is a lighter roast, and he thinks it's got some sort of hazelnut and cinnamon thing going on. Whatever it is, it smells good and wakes him all the way up.

"So, you and Abby are together again."

"Yes, about two months now."

Ziva nods. "And you are keeping this a secret. You know you can't do that forever."

"Yeah, we do. I doubt we'll keep this under wraps to Christmas, definitely not Valentine's Day. But for right now, the secret is sort of fun."

She smiles. "I understand that." Then she takes another drink. "So why don't you want Tony to know?"

"It'd be nice to enjoy this without mocking for a little while. Look, this is serious. We're not just fooling around, and, it... it really matters to me. I don't want to get constantly teased about this. And he'll tease like crazy because he won't know how to deal with it. We're all single, and he's comfortable with that. It's part of his idea of what we all are."

"He was fine with Gibbs dating."

"Gibbs is the Boss, and on top of that, Gibbs dating doesn't threaten the team. He's not going to go off, get married, and start a family. He has a family, and it's us."

Ziva drinks deeply and looks at Tim with a very warm and gentle smile on her face. "You really are serious about this."

"Yeah, I really am. I love her. This is get married, buy the house in Alexandria, have a few kids serious. It's us going off on our own, doing something he won't be able to be part of, not the way he likes to be part of us. It will change things, and I... I don't know how he'll deal with that."

"What about Gibbs?"

"Assuming he doesn't out and out kill me, I think he'll be fine with it." Tim thinks about that for a moment. "He'll be fine with it. I don't know, sometimes I think he sort of expects it. And I will tell him. When we go public with this, he'll be the first to know."

"If he doesn't already."

"Do you think he knows?"

"I can't tell. He seems to know everything that goes on with us, but I don't know if he has twigged to this, yet. After I figured it out, I watched how he watched you two, but I could not tell if he was seeing the same things I was."

Tim nods. "Palmer and Brianna know, too."

"Palmer?"

"I wanted to talk to someone who managed to successfully fall in love and stay in love. Not a lot of people I know have done that."

"That makes sense. So, what happens now?"

"I go home, get presentable, and go to work. Hopefully when I get there, Gibbs'll tell us to gear up and there'll be something besides me and Abby for everyone to focus on."

"And in the longer term?"

"Eventually we tell everyone. I bring her home to meet my mom. She introduces me to her brothers. Then ring hunting, a wedding, kids, grow old and die."

Ziva smiles at him. "Get going then, I would not want you to be late."

* * *

Standing in front of his mirror, shaving, brings back memories. He had shaved at some point on Sunday, but he doesn't know when. He was stubbly enough that it was starting to leave marks, so they ended up in the bathroom, him shaving, Abby sitting on the counter between the sinks, watching.

He was wrapping up when she stood up and very gently touched the bruise on his chest, just above and to the left of his left nipple.

"I really bit you, didn't I?" Abby looked concerned.

He turned his back to the mirror and looked over his shoulder at the eight red lines paralleling his spine. "Scratched the hell out of my back, too."

"Sorry." She lightly kissed one of the scrapes.

"Oh no. No sorries from you. I earned these, and I'm proud to have them. I've got the memory of you climaxing so hard you blacked out burned into my skin, and I want it that way."

He blinks and refocuses. He's in his own bathroom, alone, getting ready for work.

Tim rapidly notices—as his mind wanders off while he's eating his breakfast (Abby sucking him off), pulling his car out of its parking space (Abby naked, sleeping spooned up behind him), driving toward the Navy Yard (trailing his fingers down her back), basically anytime he's not actively forcing it to think of something else—that he's going to have a very difficult time paying attention to anything that happens today.

At the same time, like Ziva noticed, he feels very calm, very relaxed and satisfied. Like right that moment there's nothing in the world that he wants that he doesn't have. There's an almost Zen feel to it, and he's enjoying that.

He gets into work. Ziva's at her desk, doing paperwork. "Morning," he says to her, the same way he would have if they hadn't just seen each other two hours earlier.

"Good morning, McGee." He settles into his own chair and looks around, hoping Gibbs will waltz in soon and get them moving, otherwise it's a paperwork day.

Gibbs' team has an unusually high rate of closed cases, but that still works out to about twenty cases a year. Some years more some less. They get that many closed cases by using the Gibbs method, which works something like this: find body, work full out, non-stop until someone confesses or dies, then shift into clean up and paperwork mode. So all in all, they actually only spend about sixty or seventy days a year in the field, talking to suspects, trailing people, etc. The rest of the time they do paperwork, or they prepare for court, or they testify in court, or they give depositions, or do more paperwork.

The average day at NCIS is much more likely to involve sitting at his desk filling in forms than sitting in a car with Tony on a stakeout.

Gibbs sweeps in, folders in hand, and begins to fill out his own paperwork.

So, no case.

Tim settles back, relaxes into his chair, winces a little bit when the scrapes sting, smiles a bit as he remembers again how he got them, and shifts into a comfortable position, feet on his desk, and takes his phone out of his pocket. Gibbs writes his notes on a pad. Tim writes his on his phone. This has the advantage of making his paperwork a lot faster.

When he's taking notes he uses a text-English-hybrid that has the advantage of being fast and practically illegible to anyone who isn't him. (Say a defense lawyer who might want to subpoena his notes.) So, his paperwork days usually begin with kicking back with his phone and translating his notes into real English, then uploading them into his computer, and from there cutting and pasting them into the forms.

Gibbs wanders off to refuel with more coffee as Tony comes in. He stops dead between his and Tim's desk and stares.

"You had sex!"

Tim looks up from his phone and decides that since there's no way he can pull off convincingly denying it, to go for straight out honesty, and hope no one but Ziva noticed what was going on with him and Abby.

"Yes."

Tony's eyes went wide, and he almost dropped his drink.

"Oh my God, you did."

"Yeah, Tony. It does happen, you know?"

"No it doesn't."

Tim smiles and wiggles his eyebrows. "It did."

Gibbs returns with a fresh coffee and that stops the conversation. Tony keeps shooting glances at him, but Tim stubbornly works on his notes.

One of the perks of keeping everything on his phone is that he can flash a quick text to Ziva and look like he's working. _Good way to handle it?_

_Yes. He just about swallowed his tongue._

_:) What's he doing now?_

_He keeps staring at you trying to figure out who it was._

_Think he can?_

_I do not think he will. _

_Good._

* * *

An hour later Gibbs went off for more coffee, and Tony practically sprang over to Tim's desk.

"Who was it? Delores from accounting? Brianna's hot sister? You were dancing with her at the wedding."

Tim shook his head. "No one I met at the wedding."

"But it was after the wedding?"

"Yeah." _And during._ Tim starts to grin again.

"Oh, God. Just look at him, Ziva! Our little Timmy finally popped his cherry."

"I've had sex before."

"So you say. But you don't look like it. You look like a man who just discovered the joys of women."

Gibbs comes back, fresh coffee in hand. "Now that we've determined that McGee's lost his virginity,—"Sixteen years ago," Tim adds under his breath.—do you think we could get some work done around here?"

A quick chorus of "Yes, Boss," and "On it," ends the discussion again. At least, until Gibbs needs a fresh round of coffee.

* * *

At lunch Tony says, "So, really, tell me."

"I don't kiss and tell, Tony."

"No, but you should."

Tim's shaking his head. "No, really, no, bad idea!"

"Oh, you're killing me."

"Why are you so interested?"

Tony thinks about that. "Probably because my own sex life is so depressingly empty right now." Tim looks really startled by that, and Tony smirks it off. "Really, just curious. It must have been one hell of a night. You look really different."

"It was the best weekend of my life."

Tony's eyes went wide. "The whole weekend?"

Tim shrugs. "Most of it. It was so good, I let Ziva drive herself home in my car."

"You let Ziva drive the Porsche?"

"Yeah, Tony."

And with that Tony scuttles away to interrogate Ziva about the Porsche.

* * *

Tim wanders down to the lab a bit after lunch. The downside of paperwork days is that he's got no good excuse to go hang out with Abby. When they're actively investigating, he usually gets his main computers working, and then heads to the lab to work on hers as well. But he only needs one computer for paperwork.

But, excuse or not, he's heading down. She looks up at him as he walks in, a huge smile on her face. "So, rumor has it you got laid."

"I heard that."

Abby giggles, kisses him quickly, and then looks at him for a moment. "Yeah, you look like it."

Tim smiles. "It's probably a step past rumor. Tony flat out asked, and I said yes."

"Stealthy." She's still grinning at him, so he kisses her one more time.

"Oh yeah. There was absolutely no chance of me pulling off a lie, so I decided going with the literal truth and just being misleading about it was a better idea."

"And how is that working?"

"Tony should be down here any minute to find out if you know anything about my mystery hook-up. On the upside, he has no idea who I might have been with. And, okay, it's mean, but I'm enjoying this way too much. It's like perfect payback for every annoying thing he's ever done to me. Not knowing is absolutely torturing him."

"So what did you tell him?"

"That yes I had sex, no it wasn't my first time, and it wasn't with someone I met at the wedding, and it was the best weekend of my life. How's that for vague?"

"First time?"

He rolled his eyes. "Apparently I was looking awfully laid back this morning. 'You look like you've just discovered the joys of women.' Granted, Ziva said basically the same thing."

"Best weekend of your life?"

"Yes!" he answers, eyes warm and mischievous. They heard the bong of the elevator, and Tim let his hand, which had somehow, without him noticing, twined itself with hers, drop.

"Abby! Tell me you've gotten it out of him!" Tony says as he sweeps in, Caff Pow in hand.

Abby made the sign for zipping her lips sealed and tossed away the key. "I keep secrets with my life, Tony, and this one... You'd just explode if you knew."

"You told her!"

Tim shrugs. "She knows everything about me."

"You know McGee and I have no secrets."

"Please, please tell me. I'll provide you with hand delivered Caff-Pows for life. Think about it, you'll be ninety and I'll be rolling into your nursing home in my wheelchair, Caff-Pow in hand." He offers her the cup and she takes it.

Abby laughs at that and looks at Tim. "You know, that's a very tempting offer. Can you give me a better one to keep the secret?"

"Yes." He leans forward and whispers in her ear. "Honestly, I don't have anything off the top of my head, but doing this will drive him insane, so please play along, look really shocked, and agree that this is totally worth it."

Abby pulled back, eyes wide. "McGee! Sold. You're secret is safe with me."

Tim smirks at Tony and heads back up to his desk, thinking that perhaps he too has a spring in his step. In the elevator he begins texting. _Is he still trying to wheedle it out of you?_

_Of course. I'm hinting it's a guy._

_What! _

_Oh, come on, this is so much fun. I'm going to toss in a few other false clues too. You might come out of this with a date with Dornagent, though._

_NOOOOOOO_

_I'm kidding. Dinner?_

_Yeah, I hope so._


	18. Diane and Asexual Teddybears

And then things went massively wrong. He was happily sitting in the lab, next to Abby, watching the train wreck happen, and then he was in the middle of it.

The absolute last person he wanted in his home was Gibbs and Fornell's ex. Okay, maybe not the absolute last, if it's a question of say, Diane or his father, Diane wins hands down, but still, she's way, way down on his list.

She's bossy as all get out, which isn't something Tim really likes in a woman, hell, in people, because generally if you tell him to do something, he'll go do it. He likes making people happy, and being stuck in a room with a very unhappy person, who's also very scared and ultra-bossy is just not his idea of fun.

But, she said listen, so he listened. She wanted a shoulder to cry on, so his got cried on.

And, categorized under the heading of "no good deed goes unpunished," he got to wake up to the two scariest human beings he's ever known glaring down at him, with the single bossiest woman he's ever met, in his arms.

Not his finest hour.

Then he got to work, after Fornell made it pretty clear that if he was ever alone with Tim again, he was going to shoot him, and God, the stories... Seriously, does no one at NCIS have anything better to do than speculate on his love life? And why on earth does everyone assume he's the submissive one? He's not always, or even usually, the submissive one. Sure, submission can be a whole lot of fun, but if you think he'd be the one tied up with Diane, you've obviously never bothered to study how that kink works. Most dominant people in real life prefer the submissive role when it comes to sex. Really, who on Earth would think that Diane was attracted to Gibbs or Fornell because she likes men she can dominate?

And why does everyone always assume he's into kink? Okay, not that, under the right circumstance, and here he's thinking of with Abby, he'd mind being tied up with stockings, though, really, stockings are ridiculously bad for that sort of thing, they're so stretchy it's hard to tie them properly, and if you do get one tied, it's impossible to untie one, you have to cut it...and... okay... probably better to stop thinking about doing that with Abby before he ended up embarrassing himself.

* * *

Palmer pulls him aside a few hours later and thwacks him, not very gently, upside the back of the head. "You know, one of the best techniques for maintaining a long-term relationship is not sleeping with other women!"

"I did not sleep with... Okay, I _slept_ but nothing else happened."

He thinks Palmer believes him and was just teasing earlier. But right now it's hard to tell because the expression on Palmer's face is very serious. "Doesn't matter. It's not about sex, well, it is, but it's not just about sex. Most women I know don't appreciate it when you spend the night lying next to another person, pressed up against them, listening to their stories. Hours of horizontal touch are for you as a couple, and no one else."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Sooo... how are things going with Abby? Brianna gave me an update after the reception. Apparently you two were absolutely darling dancing in the hallway."

"Either they're going fine, or I just completely destroyed them. I'll get to find out in a few hours when I can get into the lab on my own."

"Well, let me know. You doing anything for lunch tomorrow?"

"Don't think so."

"Good, you, Abby, and I will get something."

"Assuming she's talking to me, that sounds good."

* * *

_Better to seek forgiveness than ask permission._ That's repeating over and over in his mind as he trudges his way to Abby's lab. She had been teasing him about having the -Fornell in his home, and couldn't wait to find out what gossip he had. But that was last night, and this morning...

"McGee." She doesn't sound particularly pissed at him, but it's possible she hasn't heard yet.

"I am so, so, so sorry." He stops a few feet away from her, and she doesn't step in to him. Could be this is about maintaining a decent distance, which is something they try to do at work. Or she could be about to eviscerate him.

She grins at him, and he's on the verge of relaxing, but part of him thinks this might be the trap about to snap down and break his leg in two. "What are you sorry about?"

"Sleeping next to Diane."

"Diane? Huh. You're on a first name basis now? I suppose that happens when you sleep with someone." Spoiiing, snap, yes, he was in the trap. He felt nauseous. The first time they were together, about two months had passed without a date, and he had been flirting with a pretty young thing, and she noticed. And having noticed, she made it clear that two month break wasn't ending anytime soon.

"I am so sorry."

"You told everyone else you just slept."

"We did just sleep. She wanted to talk about her marriage, she cried on me some, and then we fell asleep."

"Then why are you apologizing?"

"Errr..." That left McGee completely flatfooted. "I'm supposed to?"

"McGee," And finally she stepped up to him, close but not touching. "you're a teddy bear. You're soft and warm and cuddly. You're a good listener. I am not in any way surprised that a sad woman, who is clearly still in love with Gibbs, and maybe her husband, a little at least, and possibly Fornell, would want to spend a night hugging you."

"Thank you."

"Besides, if you want to keep us quiet, I can't think of anything likely to cause more talk than you sleeping with Diane."

"I was in Autopsy... God... The stories..."

"I started five of them." She beams at him.

He looked startled. "Why would you do that?"

"It was fun." She smiled brilliantly. "The stories everyone else was making up were just so blah... You woke up on the sofa with Diane, completely dressed. Like you'd be on the sofa or dressed if you two had been at it!"

"We've done it on the sofa," he says with a knowing look and some very good memories in his head.

"Yeah, but we certainly weren't dressed after, were we?"

"Good point."

"Just because the ex-Mrs. Gibbs-Fornell... Gorbell? Fibbs?... looks at you like a big, warm, asexual teddy-bear, doesn't mean I do. And I will never, ever be mad at you for comforting a hurting person."

Tim took a half-step closer to her, leaning his back against her desk so he could see the doorway. From there he takes her hand in his, and whispers in her ear, "So, how do you see me?"

She kissed him, quickly, you never know when someone, like, say, Gibbs, will manage to get into the lab without making a sound. "You are big and warm and cuddly. But you definitely aren't asexual." Her free hand gently ghosted along the front of his trousers and he closed his eyes and sighed. "You're the ex-Boy Scout who's forgotten more about knot tying than I've ever known. And you're the guy who is never scared to play games. You, McGee, are a whole lot of fun." He smiles at that. "And it's Diane's loss that she'll never get to find that out."

"Abby..."

"Yeah?"

"How would you feel about not keeping this quiet anymore? I think we've tortured Tony enough with my mystery woman."

"Rule number twelve be damned?"

"Yeah."

She thinks about it for a while. "I'd like that. But not right this second. Maybe wait a little while for the scuttlebutt on you and Diane to die down."

"I can do that. Jimmy wants to have lunch with us tomorrow."

"As long as no one else gets killed or kidnapped I think that can be arranged."


	19. Lunch With the Palmers

On Saturday they met the Palmers for lunch.

"So, does this count as your first real date?" Brianna asked after they ordered.

Tim looks at Abby, feeling a little perplexed at the question. It occurs to him that he's not even sure what would constitute a 'real date.'

Brianna smiles. "You know, first time out in public as a couple?"

"Nah. Anyone who saw us in that diner knew we were a couple." The hour or so they spent talking and making out wasn't what anyone would call subtle. "But this is our first time out with someone else as a couple."

"Well, congratulations anyway. And thank you for taking Jimmy into your confidence." Tim's amused that Brianna would thank him for that, but it pleases him as well. This whole trust thing has some nice side effects. One of which was being at a decent restaurant with Abby, Jimmy and Brianna, getting to know Palmer's bride.

Tim can see why Jimmy loves her. She's warm, friendly, beautiful, and as the four of them get talking shop, smart as a whip.

In some ways she puts him in mind of Abby. They have similar joyful personalities if very different aesthetics.

At one point, when the girls excused themselves, Tim said to Jimmy, "We are insanely lucky men."

Jimmy smiled and nodded. "Trust me, I know it. So, the rest of the world going to learn about your luck anytime soon?"

"Yeah, I think so. I'll let you know when it's not a secret anymore."

"Good. What do you think Gibbs is going to do?"

"I think he'll be fine with it. He might already know, but Ziva's not sure about that."

"Ziva knows?"

"She caught us at the wedding."

"Not that hard to do. Take a hint from someone who's done this a few times, don't wear cologne if you're planning on a secret quickie upstairs. Actually, for as long as you want to keep this a secret and can't keep your hands off her, skip your cologne."

"Hell."

"Yeah, she hugged me and Brianna right after her toast. And you were busted!" Jimmy beams at Tim as he said that, enjoying this way too much.

Tim gives Palmer a somewhat guilty smile and shrugs. "It was fun."

"I'll bet. Anyway, Ducky danced with her right after that and noticed, too. He asked me, and I didn't say anything, and then the thing with Diane happened, and he was really pissed at the idea that you might have been fooling around on Abby, so I let him in on what was going on."

"He didn't let on that he knows, at all."

"He's good at that. Think about it, he's known Gibbs forever, and do you know anything about Gibbs from before you started at NCIS?"

"Only the bits I could get out of Tony."

"Exactly. You want someone who will take a secret to the grave, go to Ducky."

"Hey, what are you two gossiping about?" Brianna asks as the girls come back.

"The excellent secret keeping skills of one Dr. Donald Mallard," Jimmy says with a smile and then proceeded to fill the girls in on the increasingly less secret nature of Tim and Abby's affair.


	20. Laser Tag Date Night

"You look chipper, McGee."

"Thank you, Tony."

"So, what is it that has you in such a good mood this morning?"

The one thing Tim absolutely wasn't going to say was the truth: any day that started with sex was likely to see him in a very good mood. And any Friday that looked like it was going to end with him at Abby's for the weekend was even better.

"I'm just having a good day. Toast came out perfect. No traffic. As of this point, no one is dead."

"Uh huh... Your good mood wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that you weren't home three times this month."

"What, are you having me followed?"

"I... wait... no... Stick to the script, McLiar, we're talking about your mysterious disappearances."

"Tony, I do have a life beyond entertaining you."

"No you don't. You were home every night I came over for five years in a row. Suddenly you're gone. What's happening?"

"I have not been home every time you've come over."

"Yes, you have. Every night, for five years. Best I can tell, you never go out. Suddenly, a month ago, you start going out. What's up?"

"Really?" Tim thinks about that and comes to the distressing conclusion that Tony may indeed be right about that. Not that Tim never goes out, but if he is going out it's usually during the day over the weekend, and Tony usually drops by on weeknights. It's entirely possible that he has been home every single time Tony's come over in the last half-decade.

"Really. So, what gives?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yes I do! Is it a girl? Your mystery wedding woman?" Tony looks very excited at this prospect.

"No, Tony, it's not a girl." Tim stalls thinking of a good lie.

"Then what is it that has you away from home?"

"Seriously, Tony, you don't want to know."

"God, McGee, you're killing me. What is it?"

"Table top role playing. I've been hanging out with a few guys playing old school D&D."

Tony looks disappointed. "You're right; I didn't want to know that." Then he thinks about it for a moment. "Is it fun?"

"Yeah. I like it."

"Could I come?"

Tim looks at Tony with horror, simultaneously dealing with the fact that now he needed yet another lie, and that Tony might be bored and lonely enough to want to play D&D.

He touches Tony's forehead. "You don't have a fever. Who are you, and what have you done with Tony?"

"Look, the Call of Duty stuff was actually pretty fun. So, maybe it's not impossible that the other stuff you like might be fun, too."

"Unfortunately for you, Tony, the reason I'm in such a good mood today is because we wrapped up our campaign last night. And you're right, it was a lot of fun. But it's done now."

"Oh. Wanna get some pizza tonight?"

_No, not really. I want to go to Abby's and have dinner with her._ "How about we all go out? Bring Ziva, Abby, and the Palmers along. Let's not end up with any unhappy co-workers. Hell, if you want to try something fun, let's do Laser Tag. We'll put Ziva on one team, and the rest of us on the other, and she'll still probably win, but it'll be fun."

"McGee, we're cops. We run around with people shooting at us in real life. Why would we want to do a fake version of it?"

"It's a lot more fun when no one is shooting bullets."

* * *

"How about it, Jimmy? Pizza, beer, laser tag? Show off our manly fighting prowess for the girls?" Tim's asking, and Tony is standing next to him, looking like he's vastly too cool for this and trying to figure out how the hell he ended up involved in it.

"You mean get our collected asses kicked by Ziva," Tony adds.

"That, too."

Palmer grabs his phone and fires off a text. A minute later he gets one back. "We're in."

Tim grabs his phone and texts the address of the pizza place and the laser tag building to Palmer. "Eight at Del's?"

"We'll be there. Need anything special for laser tag?"

"Wear sneakers. Make sure Brianna's got something to tie her hair back with."

"We can do that."

Ducky comes into view. "And what has you three conspiring?"

"Run Ducky, run. They're getting their geek claws into me, and if you stick around, they'll get you, too!" Tony says with a laugh.

"Just making dinner plans. Pizza, beer, laser tag. You're welcome to come if you like." Tim says.

"Alas, Timothy, I already have plans for tonight, but thank you for the invitation. Perhaps another time?"

"Anytime you want to come."

Tim nodded, and he and Tony headed back up to their desks. As the door to autopsy was closing he heard Ducky say to Palmer, "Mr. Palmer, what, pray tell, is laser tag?"

* * *

For once, he was home before seven. A Friday where work ended up early, traffic didn't kick his ass, and he had good things planned.

Okay, so dinner with everyone wasn't precisely what he'd been hoping for. He'd really been looking forward to heading to Abby's, but still, this worked, too.

And once again, he's carpooling with Ziva. This time he's waiting for her to pick him up.

He changes into a t-shirt, slipping on his sneakers. Not that he looks all that different from his usual work self, it's a tidy looking t-shirt, but if he's going to be running around, jumping about, ducking, weaving, and shooting, he might as well wear something really comfy.

He tosses a jacket on top, and is ready to go.

His phone buzzes, a text from Ziva letting him know she was waiting. Down in a sec.

Time to go play.

* * *

It's been a while since he played. It's just not all that much fun without the right group of people, and the group he used to play with kept getting married and having kids and next thing he knew six months could go by without a game.

So he wasn't entirely expecting to be recognized when he went in, but he was.

"Hey, Tim!" Seth Allane owned the place, and the two of them had been friendly. "It's been a while, where you've been man?"

"Just busy, Seth. These are my friends; we were hoping to play."

"Sure. Ten is open. They know how to do this, or should we do the safety routine?"

"I think I can get them through it just fine."

"Great." Seth hands them a bunch of clipboards. Usually he's required to go through the for-your-safety regulations and whatnot, but he knows Tim knows what he's doing, so he'll give him some leeway. "You know the drill, fill 'em out, grab your vests and guns, and out you go."

"Sounds good."

* * *

"I can't believe I agreed to this," DiNozzo says as he tugs on the vest.

"Just go with it, Tony. If you can get over what you think you look like, you'll have a lot of fun," Tim says, tightening his own vest. He turns to the girls. "Need any help?"

Palmer is already helping Brianna with the top straps. Not that she needs it, but he's enjoying the touch. He kisses the back of her neck gently while he snugs the velcro into place.

Ziva grins, wide and happy. "Sure, McGee." She turns her back to him, and he does a competent job of getting her strapped in.

"Abby?"

"I'm good." She was already in her own vest, and was playing with her gun.

Palmer and Tony looked ready, too.

"Okay, this is pretty easy." Tim picked up the gun. "Hold the gun like so." One hand under the stock, one on the trigger. "Point." He leveled it at Palmer's chest. "Pull the trigger." And one of the five lights on Palmer's vest lit up. "All five light up, and you're dead. When you're dead your gun won't work. You just sit where you fell until the game is over and we reset." Tim pointed to a switch on the panel in the middle of the vest. "Okay, see, there are four settings here, so we can set up teams, or play one on one on one on... You get the idea."

"Ohhh boys versus girls!" Brianna chirped, looking vastly more excited by this idea that Tim thought was warranted.

"Fine. Guys put yours on 1. Girls on 2. That way you can't shoot your own teammates. There's a switch on the side of the gun that does the same thing. Get it set. It'll be dark and loud and smokey with flashing lights in there, so you might be a little disoriented at first."

"It'll be a rave. No problem."

"A rave where you shoot people, Abby," Tim added.

She grinned at him. "Who says that's something new?"

"Come on, let's go!" Brianna said.

"One more thing," Tim said, "we get in there and the clock will count down from ten. Once it hits zero, it's go time."

"Great, let's go!" Brianna was more or less dragging Palmer toward the door, eager to get playing.

* * *

The girls were killing them. After the fun with her lab assistant, Gibbs made sure Abby was rated with every gun he was. Apparently Brianna's father was under the impression that good daddies take their daughters hunting, and that girl can shoot. And then there's Ziva, who in addition to being deadly with a spoon, let alone any form of firearm, has some of the best tactical training, especially for situations like this, that a person can get.

The three guys are pinned behind a large rectangle of foam. Smoke, flashing lights, and a pounding soundtrack add to the confusion.

"What I wouldn't give for Gibbs right now. He'd be up there." Tim points to a catwalk over them. "Somehow invisible, and picking off the girls."

Palmer looks up at the ceiling. "I've got an idea. I'm going to run out there like a maniac."

"This is different from your five other plans how?"

"Shut it, Tony, and listen. Look, I know I can't shoot for shit. I'll stay on this side, weaving, dodging, flinging shots left and right. That'll bring Ziva out of hiding, because she's their best distance shooter. While I'm running, Tim, head right. Tony, go left. Keep an eye on the far side. Ziva will pop out, and you guys light her up.

"Once she's out, I think you two can take Abby and Brianna."

Tim nods. "That's not a bad plan."

Tony thinks about it and begins edging to the left. "Ready when you are."

With a deep, full throated-yell, Palmer went running out from cover. Weaving, dodging, shooting anything and everything, hell, he even executed a decent roll at one point.

"When did Palmer turn into Rambo?" Tony asked as he skittered to the next cover.

"Doesn't matter, he's flushed out Ziva. Shoot, Tony, shoot!" Tim yelled back.

* * *

"I hate to say it, but that was fun," Tony said as they relaxed over beer after.

"Yes, it was. I am surprised how much fun that is when they do not shoot real bullets." Ziva said, leaning back in her seat.

"I can't believe you can shoot like that," Brianna said to Ziva. "How did you learn that?"

"That is a long story, and it's late." It was getting onto two. "Maybe next time?"

"Yeah. I want to hear that story," Palmer said. "How about we do this again the weekend after next?"

"I'd like that," Tim replied, fishing in his pocket for his wallet to cover his portion of the bill. "Ziva, you ready?"

"Sure. See you on Monday."

When they got into Ziva's car she asked, "Are you going home?"

"Yeah, she's heading back to my place after this."

"How much longer will you be hiding?"

"Not long, a week or two at most. Just waiting for the Diane debacle to die down."

"What actually happened? She had told me she wanted to do something exciting, stupid, and reckless, and then would not tell me if she had succeeded."

Tim shakes his head. "She wanted reassurance, and I was the closest male around. Maybe it was a good thing she was at my place. I'm pretty certain I'm the only one of the guys who would have only slept next to her."

"Really?"

"What does Tony do when a beautiful woman cries on him and wants to be told she's beautiful?"

Ziva nods. The likelihood of Tony refusing in a situation like that was more or less non-existent.

"And obviously Gibbs and Fornell found her attractive enough to marry. And the way they were trying to keep her out of their homes made me think both of them knew it'd end up in bed, and that would be a very bad thing."

Ziva nods at that.

"I wish she had gone to your house instead."

"I think he was testing you."

"Ziva?"

"You asked if I thought he knew about you and Abby, and I think he does. After your 'I had sex' morning, he knew. I think he was testing you. Because there is no reason why he shouldn't have sent her home with me. That's standard operating procedure. Females in protection only go to a male agent's home if there are no other options."

"So, did I pass or fail?"

"Passed?" Ziva shrugs. "He does not appear angry at you, mostly amused, so maybe it wasn't a train wreck."

"Fornell wants to kill me."

"Fornell looks at you like a puppy who had the gall to pee in his territory. Gibbs knows you're an adult and Diane isn't his."

"Small graces."

"So, the story about you and her and the blindfold, handcuffs, strawberry oil, and melted candles..."

Tim groans, rubbing his forehead. "Ugh. That strawberry goo is just nasty."

Ziva's looking at him like she found that comment to be very strange, and it occurs to him that for most people the strawberry oil would be the least objectionable thing on that list.

He smiles a little at her, and sees her look him up and down for a moment, like she's seeing him in a different light. So he says, quickly, "Anyway, Abby made that one up. Actually, any of the ones that don't go like this: Gibbs picked my lock, walked in, stared at us, Fornell showed up, started cursing, and then we woke up, completely dressed, and I nearly wet my pants because he was going to kill me, Abby made up."

"So, she was not worried about what might have happened?"

"No. She trusts me."

Ziva shakes her head. "Marry that girl, McGee. You are never going to do better."

"I know."


	21. Christmas

"This is it?" Abby asked, eyes wide.

"That's it." Tim nodded.

Abby stood in front of her Christmas tree, a tall, wide spruce, boxes of ornaments next to it, starting at the one lone ornament in Tim's hand.

"You have one Christmas tree ornament?" She took it out of his hands and looked at it. It was an abstract spire of red and clear glass, with the price tag still on it. "And it's from this year."

"Yes. Got it on the way over."

"I thought the idea was we'd decorate the tree with our ornaments."

"And we will. They'll just mostly be yours. This is the first year I've ever bought one."

Abby seemed puzzled by this. Of course, previous to this year what Tim might or might not have been doing for Christmas was pretty much entirely private. Sure there was It's A Wonderful Life and dinner at Gibbs' place, but beyond that, she'd never asked and he's never told.

"Don't you celebrate Christmas at all?"

Tim nodded. "I send out emails and presents. A Wonderful Life at MTAC. Open the presents I get Christmas morning. Call my mom, sister, and Penny around lunch. Christmas dinner at Gibbs'. But, no, I don't decorate or anything."

"No stockings by the hearth?"

"No hearth."

"No childhood ornaments?"

"I think my mom still has them."

Abby sighed. "I was kind of thinking the idea was decorate the tree, talk about Christmas memories, sharing stories that go with each ornament."

"I'll listen to your stories."

"None of your own?"

He shrugged. "How many variations of my dad was on a ship somewhere, and Santa never brought him home do you want to hear?"

"Oh."

"That was my childhood. Or how about during my teen years when he was home and we'd end up fighting because I wasn't turning into the perfect little sailor I was supposed to be? Or the massive, screaming argument we had the Christmas I turned down Annapolis and sent in my acceptance to Johns Hopkins?"

She stood behind him, wrapping her arms around him, and resting her head against his back. "I'm sorry."

She was still holding his ornament in the one hand, so he twined his fingers with the fingers of her free hand. "That's long past. But, no, I don't have any Christmas ornaments, and I don't have a lot of happy, warm, fuzzy Christmas memories."

She held him a little tighter.

He squeezed her hand. "So tell me about your Christmasses. You and Luca and stockings by the chimney with care."

Abby pulled back from him, ornament in hand, and laid it carefully on the table by the tree. "We'd always start with the lights. That's how Christmas began, the first Sunday of Advent, finding the box full of lights..." And while they wrapped the lights around the tree, Abby told him about midnight mass, Reveillion Dinner, Papa Noël, bonfires on the levees, and opening presents with her brother on Christmas morning while her parents sipped coffee with chicory.

Each ornament had a story. Tales of aunts, uncles, grand and great grandparents, many of which Abby had never personally met, made blown glass orbs come to life.

She talked about the family she no longer had, and here and there Tim remembered some of his own better memories and started to tell her about them: laying under the tree, looking up at the lights, eating candy canes with Sarah. The Christmas he was sixteen his dad was once again on a float, so their mom took them to the mountains, because they were stationed out of San Fran, and there's no snow in San Fran, so they were up in Northern California, in a cabin, watching the snow fall and drinking cocoa.

The tree looked pretty done to Tim, but his ornament was still lying on the table.

Abby looked it over, critically eyeing their work. "The last one is yours. Where does it go?"

One of the higher up branches appeared fairly empty, and it was near the ornament that had been Abby's favorite as a child, so he reached up and hung his there.

"It's like a family tree of memories. Not names or dates so much, but ideas, and bits of histories, and traditions." She says while wrapping an arm around him. He gazed down at her, brushing his palm against her cheek. "You belong on my tree, McGee."

"Thanks."

She reached up to kiss him. "You don't have to thank people when you come home to them. Home's where you belong. And you belong here."

"Yeah, I do."

* * *

Midnight Mass isn't precisely something Tim's eagerly anticipating. Not the least because Tony was late with It's A Wonderful Life, so it's already 11:30, which means driving straight to St. Sebastian's on his own, instead of heading over to Abby's, hanging out for a bit, and then going together.

But Midnight Mass is part of what makes Christmas for Abby, so he's driving across DC, hoping that the place isn't so packed that he can't find parking.

The last time he went to church for anything that wasn't a wedding or funeral was six years ago, when Ziva was asking about how Christmas was celebrated. They were telling her, and she asked, "Is there not some sort of worship service?" A quick survey of DiNozzo, Sciuto, and McGee rapidly found that yes, church was often involved, and given this particular group, that church would be Catholic.

So, that year, Abby, the only one of the group with a church she regularly attended, took them all to Mass, and they talked Ziva through the Christmas service. They ended up finding out that there are pretty large differences between Tim's Irish Catholic background versus Tony's New York Italian Catholic, and Abby's New Orleans Creole Catholic.

Then, later that evening, during dinner at Gibbs' they got him talking about growing up Lutheran in small town PA, which was an entirely different set of traditions. Followed by Ducky talking about a proper Presbyterian Christmas in Scotland.

The one thing they all agreed on was large quantities of food would be involved as well as some sort of evergreen and lights.

He pulls his car into a spot, luckily not too far from the church, and heads for the door. He's feeling horribly underdressed. Mass with the Admiral always meant wearing a suit, but Abby's promised him that he's fine in jeans, a jacket, and a nice button down.

"Sister Rosita says God doesn't care about what you're wearing," she had said, "just as long as you come."

He sees Abby waiting by the door for him. She takes his hand, and begins to lead him in. She's heading toward a front aisle seat, and while he's got nothing against the front, he knows communion is going to be an issue if he's sitting near the aisle. So he steers them toward the far edge, where an entire pew full of people won't have to step over him to get to the Host.

They sit. "Why are we over here?"

"I don't take Communion, and this way no one has to trip over me to get to it."

She nods. He's guessing she's about to ask why he doesn't take communion, but the lights go down, the Priest comes forward, and suddenly they're in a softly glowing candle-lit chapel, filled with beautiful music.

It's true that Tim doesn't have a lot of use for church. He thinks that might even be true if weekly attendance hadn't been a sticking point for the Admiral. Hard science degrees at Johns Hopkins and MIT weren't exactly kind to religious faith, and his own need for logic and rules to explain what happens and how don't particularly mesh well with mysteries and taking things on faith. But he's also old enough and has seen enough to believe that grace, whether human or divine, does indeed exist. So, these days, he considers himself a confirmed agnostic.

But it's also true that Tim understands the value of ritual, the need for magic, and the aesthetics of the sacred.

And sitting next to Abby, singing the hymns, kneeling when kneeling is called for, in a room decked with sweet, cold smelling pine, lit by candles, and filled by people celebrating love and family, he certainly understands the beauty of this, and the desire for it.

After, Abby introduces him to her pet nuns. An immensely serene woman, Sister Rosita, clasps his hands, smiling, and says, "You're Abby's McGee! We've heard so much about you over the years. I hope we'll be seeing you again."

And while it's true this isn't something he would do on his own, he's feeling very sure this is something he will be doing again, so he says, "Yes, I think you will."

* * *

She left the Christmas tree lights on. So as they settle into bed, her room is lit by the glow of hundreds of tiny yellow-white lights.

He's on his side, spooned up against her, snug under warm blankets, feeling extremely content and peaceful. His right arm is under her neck, the left draped around her waist, hand clasped with hers, curled under her chin.

Abby kisses the tip of his index finger and asks, "So, why don't you take communion?"

He thinks about how to put that into words. Better yet, words that sound like something more intelligent than 'I don't want to be my father.' He kisses her shoulder, buying himself a few more seconds.

"Symbols should matter. If you're going to get up there and partake, it should be important. Maybe you don't have to literally believe that the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ, but the idea behind that should matter to you. It should be important to who you are and how you understand the world. It shouldn't just be an exercise in going through approved motions to look like everyone else in the herd."

"And those symbols don't matter to you."

"No. Not for a long time, if ever."

"Then why go at all?"

"They matter to you. And going with you is another symbol, one I do believe in, that I'll be there for the things that are important for you."

He can't see her face, but he can feel her smile at that. She kisses his fingertips again.

"What symbols do matter to you?"

He has to think about that for a while. Sure, like any good role playing geek, he did design his own crest, with symbols that mattered to him, but that was back in junior high, and he's a somewhat different person now. Eventually he says, "My badge. The idea that I'm part of the line between order and chaos. That there's an agreed upon idea of how we'll interact with each other, and I'm part of what protects the people who follow the rules from those who don't. That I'm a gun or knife, an instrument of violence, but bound by honor, in the service of justice, for the protection of others. That matters to me.

"Words... They're the tool we use to try and expand the universe we know and see. How we share it with each other."

She squeezes his hand. "They're good symbols, McGee."

"Thanks."

* * *

He's dreaming of sixty-nining with Abby. It's lazy and slow, and so so good. It's the kind of sex he can only have in dreams, the sort where he's completely focused on how good it feels, but still able to pay enough attention to what he's doing to keep her happy too.

He loves sixty-nine, but in real life it's an either or sort of thing. He can either pay enough attention to what he's doing to get her off, and miss a lot of what she's doing to him, or he can lay back and just enjoy it, which results in some less than coordinated tongue work on his part.

But in the dream, he's more or less swimming in sex. Her body is all around him, wet, fragrant, and beautiful. He can taste, see, feel, smell and hear sex. And it's perfect.

Sliding out of the dream takes a while. Probably because at least half of what he was dreaming about was happening, so he was having a hard time sorting out what was real and what was imaginary.

But eventually he figured out he was in bed, Abby sucking away on him, doing wonderfully erotic things with her tongue. He sighed and said, "Best possible way to wake up."

She let go of him, running her tongue up his dick in one long sweep, and said, "Merry Christmas," with a wide grin.

"Merry Christmas. Is this my present?"

"One of them."

"I like the way you do Christmas presents." She licked him again. "Flip around?"

She sits up so she's kneeling between his legs, shimmies out of the mistletoe bedecked boxer shorts she had slept in, keeping on the dark blue flannel pajama top she'd stolen from him, and flipped around to straddle his shoulders.

He sighs again when his lips make contact with her pussy. Regular sex happens kind of far away from the parts of him that he experiences most of the world through. Oral sex means that all of his sense organs are up close and involved in making love. Add in her going down on him at the same time, and it's full body, full brain, sex.

And it's also clear that this is going to be done a whole lot sooner for him than it is for her. She likes going down on him, enjoys it, but it doesn't turn her on the same way going down on her turns him on. She's just getting warmed up by the time she's got him on the edge of getting off.

So he relaxes back into it, letting it flow over him, licking and sucking because he enjoys it. Because the taste of her on his tongue, the sight of her pussy against him, and the smell drive him wild.

A few minutes later, when he's breathing normally again, he starts to work on her in earnest. This time focusing on her isn't an issue, so he knows exactly where his tongue goes and how fast it should be going when it gets there. He adds his fingers to the mix, because stretch, slide, and pressure are always a good thing, too.

And when she's crying out on top of him, high-pitched breathy sounds of pleasure, he's thinking this is definitely the best Christmas morning of his life.

* * *

Abby's stirring the roux while he chops onions and talks to his mom on the phone. She just about shrieked with joy at the idea that he's spending Christmas with his girlfriend, cooking at her house, getting ready for the yearly dinner at Gibbs'. Likewise his sister and Penny took the news well. Sarah seemed especially amused by this, probably because she heard about Abby the first time they were dating, and has paid more than enough attention to Tim to notice that he's been sweet on Abby for years.

A bit later, while the aromatics brown, she calls Luca and tells him about Tim, which wasn't much of a bid deal, and Kyle, which involved about a two hour long conversation. Among other things, she's going to be sending Luca a few swabs and some sterile packaging, so she can find out if the three of them are biological siblings, or just her and Kyle.

Meanwhile he's rolling little balls of cookie dough, getting them ready to bake for that night.

Tim doesn't remember exactly when the first Christmas Dinner at Gibbs' happened. He knows it was the year the first day of Chanukah and Christmas were the same day, but he's got no idea which year that was. Ziva was new enough that she hadn't had an American Christmas yet, but had been with them long enough to have gone from an outsider to family.

The first year, it was just the six of them. And the tradition of doing it pot luck, each of them bringing something that meant "Christmas" to them was born. (Okay, Ziva brings Latkes, and now, in what is probably an ironic turn of events, it's not really Christmas for Tim until he's had a few Latkes.)

Tim makes cookies. Mostly because, while he's not a bad cook, he's also not a great one, and he can make a ton of really good cookies. They're just like chocolate chip cookies, but instead of chocolate chips he uses chopped up Andes mints. And, if they aren't anything that was part of any sort of traditional McGee Christmas, they're tasty, everyone likes them, and they travel well.

It's not Christmas for Abby without Jambalaya, so that's gently bubbling away on the stove.

Gibbs is always in charge of the turkey. It's his house, so he gets main course duty. (And often most of the side dishes.)

Tony usually brings mulled wine and cider.

Ducky brings shortbread and the traditional Mallard Christmas Carrot and Coriander soup.

And for two years that's how it went. Then Jenny joined the dinner. And eventually the Franks clan joined in. Leyla and Amira still come. Fornell, some years with Emily, some years without, started attending four years ago. Three years ago Palmer started to attend and last year he brought Breena. The year before last, Gibbs senior started to make it. This year LJ and DiNozzo Senior will be in attendance, as well.

It is, in all the best possible ways, a packed house.

* * *

Tim pulls up to Gibbs' place. Cars line the road and the driveway. He's not the last one there, but he's probably close. Heading from Abby's all the way across town back to his place (so he could pick up one of his own plates to put his cookies on, plus get some fresh clothing for today and another change for tomorrow) and then all the way back again to Gibbs', which is about fifteen minutes from Abby's, was annoying. He's thinking killing this whole stealth romance thing sooner rather than later is a very good plan. This weekend, definitely.

He walks in and notices one major change from previous years. This year, it looks like an entire grove's worth of mistletoe has been scattered about the place. Tim suspects that Senior had something to do with that. Not that he really needs an excuse to kiss the girls, but he probably likes it. Or maybe he's working on setting something up for Tony... The way he had looked when Ziva said she had never been to Tony's place certainly indicated he had plans for his son and Ms. David.

Tim's fairly sure that when Gibbs is in charge of decorating on his own there are just lights and a tree. But, like with the food, over the years the decor has changed, as well. Different members of the family coming over earlier and earlier to add to the atmosphere.

He knows Abby was here last week, adding her own touches to the place. He wonders idly if there's some special shop online that sells Goth oriented Christmas gear, because he frankly doesn't know where she got the little grim reaper in a Santa suit that she's got on Gibbs' mantle.*

It sounds like the party is in full swing, the buzz of many happy voices echoing out of the living room and kitchen. Tim threads his way through people, offering hellos and the occasional hug of greeting as he heads toward the kitchen. These days there are too many people for seated dinner, so it gets served buffet-style out of the kitchen, with everyone grabbing plates and nibbles.

Gibbs is carving the turkey in the kitchen, while Fornell stirs the gravy. Tim adds his plate of cookies to the piles of food on the table and says, "Anything I can do to help?"

"Green platter under the sink," Gibbs says, looking up and smiling a hello at him. Fornell sort of grunts something that could be taken to mean _hello_, or _I'm still pissed you slept with my wife._

He grabs it, and takes the white one, now covered in turkey, putting that on the table and setting the green one next to Gibbs.

"Anything else?"

"Let everyone know food's on in five."

"I can do that." And he does.

* * *

He's leaning against the archway between the entry and the living room, talking with Ducky, feeling especially fine and mellow, (he's already had a few cups of Jackson Gibbs' addition to the menu: eggnog) when Abby walks by him.

"I think, Timothy, tradition must be served."

Tim gives him a questioning look, and Ducky points up at the mistletoe. It occurs to Tim that not only does Ducky know about the two of them, but he's had a few eggnogs as well.

His hand reaches out, fast, well before his brain got involved in the matter, and snagged Abby by the wrist, dragging her back a few steps.

"McGee?" He's still holding her wrist, his index finger gently stroking the skin just above her wrist cuff. He's thinking that a little playful wickedness is allowed at a Christmas party. Not like he's going to take her upstairs for a quickie in Gibbs' bed. _Although... NO! NO! NONONONONO! Bad Tim, stop that! He'll headslap you with a brick if you do that. Plus you don't have a condom. Don't need one for oral. She's got those little red lace panties on under that plaid skirt, you could just—Really, stop that, she's staring at you, and you haven't answered her._

"Ducky thinks we have traditions to uphold."

Abby smiles at Ducky, and he beams back, a very mischievous glint in his eye.

Tim looks at Abby, a small smile on his lips, tilts his head a little and raises one eyebrow just a bit. She smiles at him, so he leans over and kisses her on the lips. It's just a kiss. Not making out or anything like that. The only places they're touching are their lips and the hand he has on her wrist. It's just two sets of lips touching for a few seconds, and okay hers might have been slightly open, and it's possible that his tongue might have snuck out and given her a very fast lick, but still, there was nothing obscene about it. Long enough to appreciate the contact, not so long as to cause talk. And then he pulls back, lets go of her wrist, and continues talking to Ducky as she went on her way, both of them acting like this was entirely normal.

A second later Tony's standing right next to him. "Woah, McHotlips! What the hell was that?"

He grins at Tony, enjoying this way too much. "Mistletoe, and if you don't want to get kissed, you should take a step back."

Tony takes a giant step back. "That wasn't just a friendly peck on the cheek. You got Ziva earlier tonight and Breena, too, and there was no lip on lip action."

Tim smirks. Y_eah, this is way too much fun. Push him further? Oh yeah_. "Got a somewhat different history with Abby." Tony's just staring at him, looking like he's not buying this. So Tim calls out, "Hey, Abby."

"McGee?" She looks over at him from talking to Amira and Emily. Gibbs had made Amira a chess set, and she's showing the girls how to play.

"I ever kiss you before?"

She laughs. "Yeah, couple of times." And goes back to talking to the girls like nothing just happened.

Tim gives Tony a happy and satisfied look. Tony continues to stare at him, and then says, "What's gotten into you?"

Tim looks at the cup in his hand. "About three of these eggnogs. I think I've figured out the Gibbs family secret ingredient. Bourbon to go with the rum."

"Bite your tongue, boy," Jackson says, joining them. "It's whiskey and nothing but!"

"Yes, sir." Tim nods. "And it's delicious."

"As well it should be. But even if it wasn't, anything that gets you kissing pretty girls is worth drinking!"

"Indeed!" Ducky says, and the two of them begin talking about their younger years of lying in wait at Christmas parties, hunting the pretty girls. DiNozzo Senior wandered over, and from there the conversation got fairly bawdy, which Tim was actually enjoying, but mortified Tony, who scuttled away at the first opportunity.

* * *

He's lying in Abby's bed again. This time on his back while she cuddles against his side, her head on his shoulder. His fingers are idly petting her hair, and she's gently stroking his chest.

"Good Christmas?" she asks.

"Yeah, that really was." He takes her hand in his, slipping his fingers between hers, watching the way they fit together. "How about on Friday, after work, I tell Gibbs about us, and then we take this full on public?"

"I'd like that. It'd be nice to show up at a party with you, leave with you, and really kiss you while we're there."

"Yeah, it would." He smiles and kisses the back of her hand. "Friday then?"

"Friday."

* * *

*For some reason, Tim hasn't actually read Hogfather. Why? I don't know, but somehow, he just hasn't. Perhaps one day Abby will take him in hand and remedy this frankly perplexing lack in his geek cred.


	22. Gibbs

So, on Friday, instead of driving to his own home, he turned his car toward Gibbs' place.

Gibbs' basement is one of the most male places Tim's ever been. And he's been in a lot of guy only places over the course of his life.

One of the things he likes about Gibbs' basement is that it's not aggressively masculine. It's not his dad or grandfather's offices, which were covered in images of things that kill people, awards for killing people, citations, praises, and headlines for killing people.

Gibbs kills people, too. In a more up-close and personal way than either his father or grandfather ever did. And Tim understands the necessity of it, the value of men who are willing to end life, as well as protect it. But there should be more than that. And, for Gibbs, there is. Here, in his basement, in the space where he does what he loves; he builds things. Here, in this basement, is masculine energy that creates, that tames chaos, and coaxes beauty out of everyday objects and the will of man.

Tim likes to think of his writing that way, as well.

Though Gibbs and his father are similar when it comes to the being the calm, quiet, deadly type, Tim prefers that Gibbs creates in his off time, while his father works on new ways to destroy.

He stands on the bottom step for a moment, watching Gibbs work a plane over a piece of wood.

Part of him wants to fluster and bluster and hide from this. Another part knows that Gibbs will respect blunt and to the point a lot more than any flowery words or excuses.

"Abby and I are dating again."

Gibbs looks up, and, like Palmer, he couldn't have been less surprised if he tried. "Yeah."

Tim waits for a minute, wondering if there'll be anything else. But Gibbs is just looking at him, almost daring him to break into a long, flustered chain of words.

"That's it?" Tim asks.

"Yeah."

"Nothing about rule twelve, or possibly breaking up the team or..."

"McGee, DiNozzo's your partner. You two start dating; I'll have something to say about it. Abby's the love of your life. Now get out of here and go see her."

"Yes, Boss."

"Tim."

"Yeah?"

"Make her happy."

"Will do, Boss."

He's half-way up the stairs when two thoughts occur to him. One he decides to save for a little while, namely, if he's Tony's partner, who is Ziva's? The second thought is more personal.

"Boss?"

"Yeah, McGee?"

He turns and goes down the stairs, leaning against the railing.

"May I ask you a personal question?"

Normally this is so far away from something he's allowed to do that he'd never do it, but especially after that very long chat with Diane, it occurs to him that Gibbs might have some real insight into this.

He half expects Gibbs to give him that 'back off' look, but Gibbs gives him that look that says 'go ahead.' It occurs to Tim that it's likely the only reason he's getting the go ahead is because this is related to Abby, and a lot of Gibbs' walls fall when it comes to Abby.

"When you got married the second, third, and fourth times, did you mean your vows?"

Gibbs looks very startled and quite annoyed by that.

_Oh shit!_ Tim quickly adds, "I'm not calling you a liar, it's just... Look, you're a good guy. You're brave and loyal, and you put yourself on the line for other people all the time. From everything I can see, you're the definition of an honorable man. But you've got three ex-wives, all of whom you promised to love forever. Did you really love them, and did it just go wrong? Or did you know it wasn't quite right from the start?"

Gibbs puts down the plane, goes to his work bench, and pours two glasses of bourbon. He gestures and Tim comes closer. He hands one of them to Tim.

Tim holds his glass, waiting to see how, or if, Gibbs will answer. Gibbs shoots his back. Maybe some things can only be said slightly drunk.

"Truly loving someone is..." He lets that trail off, maybe he doesn't have a good way to explain what really being in love is, or maybe it really is just too personal to say out loud. "And when it's gone, you crave it. Not having it carves a hole so deep inside you; you'll do anything to make that go away. I made some awfully bad choices trying to ease that ache. And every time I got up there to say my vows, I meant them, heart and soul... just not to the woman standing in front of me.

"Did I know? Not then. But I know now. The thing is, you love someone like that, there'll never be another person to fill that hole. There are other people, who could be perfectly good partners, who could make you happy, but it can't happen if you keep trying to turn them into the person you lost."

Tim sips his drink. "I'm sorry you lost her."

"Me, too. So, now, take my advice, quit wasting your time. You and Abby aren't getting any younger."

"Yes, sir." Once again halfway up the stairs, he has to add another question. "Boss..."

"Yeah, McGee?"

"Who is Ziva's partner? I mean, if I'm Tony's..."

Gibbs smiles. "I am. And maybe one of these days DiNozzo will get up the nerve to ask me that for himself."

"Probably sooner rather than later. He's over at my place two-three times a week now."

Gibbs nods and then, finally, Tim leaves.


	23. Something Hinky

Normally, Tony wouldn't do this. But, to quote Abby, something "hinky" is going on with McGee, and as a good friend and a good partner, it's his job to get to the bottom of it.

Tony is standing outside of Tim's apartment. He knows Tim is home, because his car is parked in its normal spot. But it's not supposed to be in that spot. He's supposed to be out tonight.

He knocks, and there's no answer. Not that he expected one. Tim had already told him that no, they couldn't get together tonight, because he had some sort of unnamed errand. Something quote, "Really, Tony, you don't want to know," about.

It's got to be a woman. And really, honestly, it worries Tony. This isn't just a matter of curiosity. Between his own personal experience on how badly everyone involved can get hurt with a secret romance, and McGee's unerring ability to hook-up with psychos, a secret romance has all the ingredients for them to end up hunting down McGee's killer.

Plus, they're partners, and okay, yeah, he'll tease McGee about a girlfriend, or hell... boyfriend?—Oh, God, is that why he keeps saying it's not a girl? Okay, some of Abby's hints sort of leaned that way. Is that why McGee thinks he really doesn't want to know? Oh well, no biggie if it is. Unless he's about to walk into something he'd really rather not see.—but he should be honest about stuff like this.

He knocks one more time—maybe McGee's in the head or something—and two more minutes go by with no answer.

Lock picking isn't his best skill. Usually he's got Ziva or Gibbs around for doing that. But not his best skill and can't do it at all are not in any way the same thing. So, yeah, he's not setting any records for getting into McGee's apartment, but eventually the door opens.

He shuts it behind himself quietly, and is about to yell out "Hello" when he realizes what he's hearing. Sex. Fast, hard, and from the sounds of it, _hot_, sex. Sex loud enough that he's sure no one in that apartment heard him knock. Tony's honestly embarrassed that it takes him a few seconds to identify the sounds. Obviously he's been on the shelf too damn long if he's actually got to think about it to figure out what he's hearing.

He supposes that he should turn around, walk out, and then verbally beat the hell out to McGee tomorrow for not telling him.

But his feet are pulling him toward McGee's room. Really, he should leave. It's one thing to break into a guy's home to prove he's lying to you. It's a whole other thing to treat his sex life as your own personal peep show.

The fact that he's thinking that has in no way altered the path his feet are taking. It's like his brain is sitting in his head, giving orders, but nothing below his ears is paying attention to it.

The door to McGee's room is open, and he steps through it.

The sight before his eyes is so shocking to him that he cannot process it. He literally cannot attach people he knows to the image in front of him.

It's beautiful, artistic, and ridiculously erotic.

The girl, he can't wrap his mind around the idea that this might be Abby, so he thinks of her as 'the girl' is on top of a waist high dresser, wearing black stockings with red ribbons lacing up the back. Her legs seem impossibly long, one of them wrapped around 'the guys,' hip—Once again, his mind refuses to attach the identity of McGee to what he's seeing, so he thinks of the male as 'the guy.'—the other stretched straight up, along his chest, her foot, clad in a red stiletto heel, near his ear. Her back is arched, her head back, long black hair lightly brushing the top of the dresser with each thrust.

The guy is naked. He has one hand on her hip helping to steady her, the other on the calf near his ear. His face is turned toward that leg, kissing it. He's moving fast, nothing slow or gentle about the sex, but the look on his face is intense and reverent.

From Tony's place next to the door, he can see there's some sort of red rope, it looks soft and shiny, across the girl's back, just below her shoulder blades. Each strand of the rope extends up her arms, crisscrossing, mirroring the lacing of the stockings, until her hands meet above her head, and the ropes come together, securing her hands to each other. From there the rope twists around itself, terminating in a fairly complex, and very secure-looking, knot on a hook in the ceiling.

Tony can see the girl is in front of a mirror, so the guy can look at her in front of him, and see her back at the same time.

The mirror. Tony's looking at this in the mirror and he realizes that both of them have their eyes open.

The guy is looking at him. Not slowing down, not stopping, not acting flustered or embarrassed. He's just staring at Tony, saying nothing, and fucking like a porn star.

And that's when the fact that this is McGee and Abby snaps into Tony's mind.

"Oh my God." He whispered it the first time. "Oh my God!" The second time was in a regular voice. "OH MY GOD!" He thinks he might have shrieked it as he tripped over his feet running out of McGee's apartment.


	24. Nerd Sex

Tim's never been to Tony's place. But it doesn't take long for him to find out where it is. After all, the guy who can hack the CIA doesn't have any problems getting into the NCIS human resources database.

He debates knocking, but decides not to. Tony broke into his house last night; last thing he needs to do is be polite.

It's a matter of a minute to pick Tony's lock. The fact that Tony has a chain on his door stops Tim, though. Two thoughts occur to him: One he should get one of those for his place. Two, now he has to be nice and knock.

Another minute and Tony answers. He looks tired and maybe a little hung over. He doesn't say anything; he just stares at Tim, like he'd never seen him before, and it occurs to Tim that Tony never really has seen him before. He's seen an image of Tim that fits his own ideas and prejudices of who Tim should be.

"I told you, you didn't want to know."

Tony's too rattled to bluster. "I was worried about you."

"I get that. But I can take care of myself."

"Yeah. So... um... you and Abby?"

"Yep. If you had minded your own business, we were going to tell you tonight."

Tony thinks about that. "Aren't the Palmers going out with us tonight, too?"

"Yeah. They already know."

"Wait, you told Palmer? Before me?"

"Yeah, Tony. I told Palmer. I'm not just fooling around here. So, before this even got started, I asked him for advice."

"What sort of advice could Autopsy Gremlin have?" Tony looks somewhat insulted and disappointed right now.

"I don't know? What could our married friend possibly know that might be useful to me? Hmmm... Maybe he'd know something about how to actually create a relationship that works?"

"Cut the sarcasm."

"You picked my lock and walked in on me having sex with Abby! I think I deserve a little sarcasm."

"I'm sorry I did that."

"Good."

They stand there, quiet for a moment. Finally DiNozzo says, "So, you really are serious about this?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you talk to me?"

"Seven hundred hook-ups in the last three years does not make you the guy I go to for relationship advice. I don't need advice on how to hook-up. I don't want a hook-up. They bore me."

"Yeah McKinky, I got that. But that's not what I meant. We're partners, supposedly friends, we talk about important things."

"McKinky? Tony, on a one to ten scale of kink, that was a two five maybe three. And as for why not say anything, you can't keep a secret to save your life. This matters to me, and if it didn't go right, I didn't want to be mocked. I certainly didn't want you telling Abby or worse, Gibbs, about it before anything got going."

Tony closes his eyes. "A three? God, McGee, I didn't need to know that about you."

"Yeah, well, I told you, you didn't want to know. Why did you assume I was wrong about that?"

"I wanted to know on a general level. Like, 'Hey, Tony, I don't want you in my apartment all the time because I'm doing horrifically freaky things to Abby.'"

"Seriously, you have no idea of what horrifically freaky is. How on earth is it you've slept with every woman in the greater DC area and you're so sheltered?"

"Just, stop. Okay." Tony looks genuinely hurt. "This isn't about my sex life."

Part of Tim feels like he should pull back, let it lie. Part of him wants to know what's really going on here. And part of him knows that if they don't have this out properly it'll just sit there and fester, and he doesn't want that, so he says, "Really? Okay. We're partners. We talk about important things. Why are you at my place all the time these days? Why, after hearing, because you had to be able to hear what we were doing, after all, I don't see any reason to be quiet when I'm having sex in my locked apartment, did you walk into my room? What's going on with you?"

Tony looks deeply uncomfortable. He sighs and gestures to the sofa. Tim sits down. "You want a drink or anything?"

"I'm good." Tony vanishes into the kitchen and comes back a moment later with a beer. "Beer? It's ten in the morning."

"It's a beer conversation." He sits down heavily on the piano bench. "And I'm still trying to kill the brain cells that remember what I saw last night. How am I ever going to look Abby in the eyes again?"

Tim shrugs. "You're looking at me."

"You weren't the one tied up like a—"

"The ropes, that's what has you freaked?"

"No... It's just...Okay... I don't look at Abby like that. She's my asexual little sister."

"She's really not."

"Yeah. I know that, now. But I didn't want to know that. I could have, very happily, gone my whole life without ever knowing that. Think about it, do you want to know what your sister gets up to with her boyfriends?"

"Ergh..." Tim winces. There are some things he'd really rather not know about his sister. "No, which is part of why I never walk in on her unannounced. And once again, I told you, you didn't want to know."

"Yeah, and if you ever tell me I don't want to know something again, I'll listen."

"Good. So really, what's going on? Why are you at my place? Why did you walk in?"

"I don't know." Tony's staring at the beer, like it might somehow have the answers to all of his issues. "It's just... lately...I don't know, the chase isn't doing it for me. It's hollow and empty and... I guess I want something more."

Tim smiles, looking amused, he knows now probably isn't a great time to tease Tony, but he can't resist. "And you're looking for it at my place? I'm flattered, but I think after last night it's pretty clear I don't swing that way."

"Yeah. I get that." Then it hit's Tony what Tim's really said. "I'm not gay! I enjoy being with you, okay. We're friends, and spending time with you isn't cheap or hollow."

"So, you're looking for a deeper human connection—"

"You sound like Oprah when you say it that way."

"You got a better way to put it?"

"No."

"And you're hanging out at my place..."

"Not just yours. I'm spending a decent amount of time with Gibbs."

"And Ziva?"

"No. Not Ziva."

"Uh huh. So, you're lonely. And to remedy lonely, you're hanging out with your guy friends."

"Yeah."

"Instead of chasing women."

"It's not working anymore."

Tim leans back on the sofa. "Sounds like you need a girlfriend."

"I've had girlfriends."

"No, not a hook-up. Not a series of hook-ups with one woman. Do you remember what being engaged felt like?"

"Yeah. That's part of what prompted this."

"You know, when I told Gibbs about Abby and I—"

"You told Gibbs, too? Did anyone besides Ziva and I not know?"

"First of all, of course I told Gibbs. Between his relationship with Abby, and his relationship with me, I wasn't about to spend too long going behind his back. You walk in on the two of us and it's uncomfortable. He walks in, and I get killed."

Tony nods at that and takes another swig of his beer. "Yeah, could you imagine dating his daughter?"

"I sort of am. Which is another reason for not telling everyone and seeking advice on how to run a successful, long-term relationship. Pissed off Gibbs avenging Abby is really low on my list of people I want to spend time with."

"Okay, yeah. Got that."

"Anyway, when I told him, I asked about rule number twelve, because, well, you know, Gibbs... And he said something interesting. 'McGee, DiNozzo is your partner. You start dating him, and I'll have something to say to you.'"

"Of course I'm your partner."

"Right." Tim sits there, expectantly, waiting for the light to dawn on Tony. Tony sits there stubbornly not getting it.

"Tony, if I'm your partner, who is Ziva's?" The light dawns and Tony's eyes grow wide. "Exactly. Look, you don't have to be lonely, but you do have to figure out how to deal with a woman as a sexual person and not freak out about it. You can't just have two columns, hook-ups and sisters. If you don't want to be lonely, you have to figure out how to value sex as part of a person, and enjoy it as something you do fully with someone else."

Tim thinks for a moment, and then gets up and grabs a beer. Some things really are just too damn hard to say without some alcohol to dull the part of your brain that keeps you quiet.

He drinks down half of it fast, hoping it'll catch up to him soon, and sits back down on the sofa, elbows on his knees, leaning toward Tony. "You know why I don't like hook-ups?"

"You're bad at them?

Tim flips him the bird and takes another deep drink of the beer. "Because they're basically masturbation, and I can do that for myself just fine. And Tony, you're not seventeen, hell, you aren't thirty-seven anymore. You've jerked-off enough. Time to find a partner and figure out what's involved in real sex." Tim takes one last drink, finishing off the beer. "Now, here's rule number one for my place: Unless you think I am in mortal peril, do not ever just walk in. If I do not answer the door or my phone, turn the hell around and leave. If you thought what you walked in on was disturbing, what happens when Abby and I really get going would make you wet your pants."

They sat quietly for a few minutes. Tim was on the verge of saying something like, 'You know this really is a nice apartment', but curiosity got the better of him. If you asked him, he'd say the beer went to his head, and that's why he asked. And, if you asked Tony, he'd tell you that's why he answered, in fact, Tony would blame this entire conversations, including the parts that happened before he was drinking, on the beer, but really, neither of them is such a lightweight that one beer will get them talking if they don't want to talk.

"So, why did you go in? I mean, I know we weren't being quiet, and even if it's been a while for you, you still remember what sex sounds like. What were you expecting to see?"

Tony shakes his head. "I don't know. Something sort of awkward and romantic? Candles, flowers, missionary position. Not ropes and tattoos and sharp pointy shoes."

"What we were doing didn't look romantic to you?"

"No, it looked like porn. Strangely artistic porn."

"Tony, what do you think romance is?" Tony seriously thinks about it for a moment, but doesn't say anything. "Why do women like candles and flowers and chocolates?" Tim hopes the extra question will clarify what he's getting at.

"They just do?"

"There's part of your problem. Romance has three parts: effort, showing that you've paid attention, and trust.

"So, effort: they don't just sell satin ropes at the corner hardware store. I had to go to three craft stores before I found a place that had the right stuff in the exact same color as the laces on Abby's stockings. But it wasn't strong enough to support her weight, so I had to braid it into something that could do that. Twice, because I needed two ropes. I had to measure to make sure it was the right length. I had to find the joist in my ceiling and then sink the hook into it. Then I had to move the dresser and the mirror that goes over it, and also find the exact angle where the mirror on my closet door would let Abby see what was going on.

"Oh, and by the way, there were candles and flowers, and I got dinner, too, but apparently you didn't notice that.

"Paying attention: I know Abby likes knots. I know how she likes to be tied up. I know she likes to watch. And I know she likes roses in red, white, and black, so that's the colors I got. I know she prefers spicy scents to flowery ones, so the candles are a cinnamon-vanilla mix.

"Trust: Do you have any idea how much trust it takes to let someone tie you up like that? Let alone take pictures."

"Oh God, you took pictures?"

"Did you not see how hot that looked? Of course I took pictures! But that's beside the point. Tony, that might not have looked like your idealized hearts-and-flowers-Hallmark-card-Valentine's-day, but trust me on this, you've never seen anything more romantic than that in your life."

"Huh. I've never thought about it like that."

"I get that. And I've got nothing against missionary style, straight-up sex. It's good for talking to each other."

"You talk during sex?"

"Sometimes."

"Like, kinky talk?"

"Sometimes. Get her mind involved in the sex, and you'll both have a better time for it. But no, not always. Sometimes we just talk."

"Weird."

"Really? You think talking to someone who is letting you into her body is weird?"

"I think being able to come up coherent sentences when you're in someone else's body is weird. I can barely remember my name when I fuck." Tim kind of shrugs to indicate, that, yeah, he sort of gets that.

"So, let me see if I get this, you two, you're having dinner, maybe a bottle of wine, talking about whatever it is you two talk about, and then at some point, you just chirp up with, 'Hey, Abby, how about I tie you up and fuck you blind?"

"We'd planned on it a few days ahead of time, but yeah, that's the basic idea."

"You plan sex?"

"How long do you think it takes to braid two thirteen foot long ropes? Of course we planned it ahead of time! That's not the sort of thing you excuse yourself for and whip up in five minutes. Here's lets add a fourth plank to romance: anticipation. If you plan ahead of time, you get to anticipate what comes next."

Tony sighs and shakes his head. "Nerd sex."

"Nerd sex is a lot of fun."

"So you say."

"I was right about Call of Duty and Laser Tag."

"You were."

Tim looks at Tony meaningfully for a long moment, and then says, "So, this is a really nice apartment."


	25. Secret's Out

Eight hours later, they're out, getting pizza before their bi-weekly Laser Tag game. Abby walks over to DiNozzo and slaps him upside the back of the head, quite a bit harder than Gibbs does it.

"Owww..." he gently rubs the back of his head.

"It's polite to knock."

"I knocked."

"It's polite to wait for someone else to answer."

"Yes, Ma'am. Will wait for someone to answer next time."

"Good. Dinner's on you tonight."

Ziva watched the exchange with an amused smile on her face. "What happened?"

"DiNozzo picked McGee's lock and walked in on us last night."

Ziva stood up and smacked him upside the back of the head, as well, and, damn, she does it harder than Gibbs, too. "What's that for?"

"Not respecting their privacy."

"Did you just miss what she said, 'Walked in on us!'"

"I heard, I knew."

"Everyone knew but me?"

"Looks like it, Tony," Jimmy says as he picks ups a slice.

"And you didn't tell me?" Tony asked Ziva.

"What's to tell? You could see it just as easily as I could."

"Apparently not." He's rubbing the back of his head. "Meanwhile, I keep telling you I'm worried about McGee's mysterious disappearances..."

Ziva takes a dainty bite of her pizza. "And I kept telling you to mind your own business, that he'd tell you when it was time."

"Which was supposed to be tonight," Tim chimed in.

"So, everyone knows we're dating?" Abby added.

"Vance," said Ziva.

"Ducky?" asked Tony.

"Figured it out at the wedding," Palmer answered.

"At the wedding?" Tony's sounds wounded by that. "So, for the record, you are the mystery woman?"

Abby smiles. "Yeah."

"How did I miss that?"

"You were busy hitting on my sister," Breena said. "She thinks you're cute, by the way, and wouldn't mind if you were to call her at some point."

Tony nods. "Glad to see someone's been appreciating me."

"We love you, Tony" Abby hugged him, "and if it wasn't for the fact that all of you are much too observant for your own good, the Palmers and Gibbs would have been the only ones to find out before you did."

Ziva shrugs at that while Palmer says, "If Tim wasn't making rookie mistakes, it would have been harder to tell."

Breena gives Jimmy a long look, something that seems to say, _And what precisely would you know about running a clandestine affair?,_ and Jimmy blushed.

"So, you do have to tell Vance," he says by way of getting off that topic. "It's policy. You've got to tell your immediate supervisors."

"Oh... I'm not looking forward to that," Tim added.

Breena looked at both of them. "Can't you just send him a memo?"

"Yeah, NCIS, at least our team, doesn't work that way. I wasn't kidding about the family thing. Leon's sort of a distant and imposing Great Uncle. You know, the sort that make you feel all squirmy when they stare at you? But he's still part of the family, so no matter how uncomfortable it is, you've got to tell him in person," Abby replied.

"Yay! Monday morning." Tim said sarcastically. "I think you should tell him."

"Why me?"

"He's your direct supervisor, not mine. And I already told Gibbs."

"There is that." Abby says.

"Really?" Breena asked.

"Really. She outranks all of us except Ducky. She outranks Gibbs," Tim says, enjoying this.

Abby shrugged. "It'd be a bigger deal if I had employees or something. But, the lab is mine, which means I'm head of my own department. So, below Vance, equal to Ducky, above all of my very favorite special agents."

"How did you end up in charge of the lab?" Breena asked, and from there the conversation flowed about how Abby ended up with her science kingdom in the basement at NCIS.

* * *

"Give me a lift home, Tony?" Ziva asks at the end of the game.

"Sure." She had carpooled with Abby and McGee on the way there, but having gotten there and seeing how Tony was doing, she wanted some time alone with him.

"You've been very quiet all night," she says as she gets into his car.

He nods, turning on the ignition and shifting into reverse.

"Talk to me?"

"None of you trusted me with it."

"Would you have kept quiet? Could you have not teased McGee about it?"

"Yes, I would have kept quiet. I'm not going to screw up his chances with Abby! And no. Teasing McGee is like breathing, I can't not do it."

"But you're still bothered he didn't tell you earlier."

"He told Palmer before me. Palmer? They're barely friends. He doesn't work ten hours a day with Palmer. Palmer doesn't have his back."

"Palmer is married."

"Yeah. So what? He's supposed to tell me things like that. I'm his partner, Ziva."

Ziva squeezes his hand. She completely understands Tim's desire to keep his heart to himself, and she utterly understands Tony's disappointment and hurt at not being chosen for this secret.

"Does he know Wendy left you?"

"No."

"Did you ever tell him the whole story about Jeanne?"

"No."

"Any of it?"

Tony shakes his head. "You, Jenny, and Gibbs knew I loved her. That was it."

Ziva nods. She doesn't have to say any more about that. Tony's gotten the message. So she shifts topic a little to something else she's been noticing. "Do you miss her sometimes?"

"Yeah. Sometimes."

"Especially lately?"

"Yeah."

"You could try looking her up again. Enough time has passed, maybe you could..."

"No. That bridge is burned. I don't want to go back, not to her, not to Wendy." He looks at Ziva sitting next to him, seeing her in the orange glow of halogen street lights. "Just not sure how to get to where forward is."

"You'll find it Tony, just give it some time."

"Sure."


	26. Stakeout

Five days later they're on a stakeout and Tony says, "So, if you're my partner, who is Ziva's?"

"According to Gibbs, it's him."

"Hmmm..."

"Why are you asking?"

"Just, thinking about it."

"Okay. Can I suggest something?"

"Suggest away McSuperfreak."

"Before you do anything beyond think, talk to Gibbs."

"He was cool with you and Abby."

"His exact words were, "McGee, DiNozzo's your partner. Abby's the love of your life. Now go make her happy.'"

"Sounds like he was cool."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he'll be cool with you and Ziva. He trusts me not to screw this up. I don't know if he trusts you with that, not yet."

"Why wouldn't he trust me with this?"

"Because you've got a horrible track record with women."

"And you don't?"

"Not the same kind you do. I pick the wrong girl. Stop picking the wrong girl, and I'm an ideal boyfriend. You're emotionally closed off and treat women like objects. Big, big difference. Look, he loves us." Tony doesn't look like he buys that. "You didn't see the way he looked at me when he thought I was hurt, or the way he was asking about you and Ziva when you were missing. He loves us. But we're boys. So, we get treated like sons, you know, hands off, not too protective unless we really need it. But Abby and Ziva, they're _his girls_. And if it's one of us or one of them, they win. Hands down. You screw things up with Ziva, and he will kill you."

"Like he'd get the chance. She'd kill me so dead so fast he'd just be standing there with the tape to mark where my body had been."

"Good point. Still, talk to him first. He'll appreciate it, you know in an old-fashioned-calling-on-my-daughter sort of way."

They sit there staring at a brownstone, waiting for someone, anyone to go in or come out.

"You want me to get us some lunch?" Tony asks.

"Sure, that sounds good."

Tony comes back to the car with two hamburgers, fries, and drinks. Tim pops a fry into his mouth. "Ahh... stakeout food. Yum!" His tone is about three quarters sarcastic. He likes burgers and fries, but they've been on stakeout for a while, and they're getting repetitive.

Tony's fiddling with his burger, not really eating it.

"What's wrong, Tony?"

"Nothing."

"You sure?"

"I'm... Okay, no, not nothing. The thing with the ropes, how does that work?"

"They're ropes. You tie knots in them. It's not rocket science." Okay that came out sharper than was probably warranted, but the way Tony's looking at him has him on edge. Tony's looking at him like he doesn't like what he sees when he looks at Tim.

"No... I mean... why? Is it a power thing? You're in charge, she can't leave? Your little inner rapists gets to play?"

Tim's eyes go wide and his burger drops out of numb fingers. He's never been more insulted by anything Tony's said to him. "Tony, what the hell is wrong with you?"

Tony looks really disturbed and very confused. "You don't have to tie them up if they like you!"

"I don't _have_ to tie Abby up. I _like_ tying her up. She _likes_ being tied up. And she does it to me just as often as I do it to her. I _like_ getting tied up. She _likes_ tying me up. No inner rapists." He slaps Tony's shoulder. "It's a game. It's fun. I don't get basketball, that doesn't mean that I think you want to go run around and assault people."

"I just don't get it." Tony's looking at his burger, but that expression of disgust aimed at Tim has vanished.

Tim takes a deep breath and tries to think of how to explain this. "Okay, ropes. If you're using a rope, it's for the aesthetics." He grabs his phone and clicks on a hidden file. This is where he keeps his super secure items, mostly pictures of Abby, but bank statements, his password folder, stuff like that is in here, too. A screen pops up asking for the password. If you type anything into it, it destroys the phone, and not just in a wipes the memory sort of way, but shortly after watching Sherlock Season Two, he wired a tiny explosive into it as well. Type a password in and the phone goes boom. You have to wait a full minute for the password request to vanish. The screen goes black, it looks like it just powered down, then you type in the password. It's one letter: J. Type in the wrong letter, boom. Type in more than one letter, boom. Take more than five seconds to type in the password, boom. Open the phone, boom. It's probably the most secure phone in the western hemisphere.

He sorts through the images, keeping them out of Tony's view. Even though Tony's already seen this, he stood there for a minute before running out screaming, he doesn't want to share most of the images with him.

Just the one of Abby's forearms and hands. "Look Tony, take a moment and really look at it. It's beautiful. The red of the rope, the sheen of the satin, the way the knots make her hands and arms look so long and delicate. Look at her fingers, and the way they're twined in the rope. Look at her nails, crimson nails on scarlet rope. Look at the contrast between her skin and the rope. White skin, black ink, red satin ropes. The Japanese call it Kinbaku-bi, the beauty of tight binding. In Japan the rope would usually be jute or hemp, but they're sharp and itchy, so I go for silk or satin. This has a long tradition, and there are a lot of words to go with it. Shibari is a more common one, but doesn't indicate the same level of emotional attachment Kinbaku-bi does.

"Some people are really into this. Lots of specific knots, lots of tradition. Some of them like pain to go along with it, but that's not Abby or I, so I always make sure the knots are comfortable, once again, no hemp ropes. But for the most part, with a rope, it's about how it looks.

"Just look at it, Tony." He flicks to the next pic, this one just of her hands holding the rope. "Look at her hands, look at how they caress the rope. Look at how erotic and expressive just that image is. It's just two hands and a rope, but they tell a story, and it's beautiful. There's nothing hurtful or painful or scared or non-consensual about that."

Tony's face is pointed toward the image on the phone, but he doesn't seem to be seeing it. "That's how you see it. I see bound hands clenched against a rope, and that looks like pain to me."

Tim looks at the picture again and points it back at Tony. "Her hand isn't clenched."

"Okay, not that picture, but when I was... there..."

"Oh." _Fuck!_ Tim rubs his eyes, taking a moment to think about what that might have looked like if you didn't know what you were seeing. "I wasn't hurting her, Tony. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. But..."

"It looked painful to you?"

"Yeah."

_Okay, how to explain this..._ "You ever really watch a woman's face when she gets off? She looks like she's in pain."

"No she doesn't!"

At this point it occurs to Tim that either the kind of woman he sleeps with is in some way fundamentally different than the sort Tony sleeps with, or their technique is so radically different as to produce very different results. Either way, this isn't the road to take. "Okay, fine. She doesn't." Tim picks up his burger, and flicks the crumbs off his trouser leg. "That's gonna stain."

"You're just gonna leave it at that?"

"I'll bow to your superior experience in this matter. I've only seen three women get off."

"Three?" Now Tony's looking a bit happier.

Tim can feel him warming up for some serious teasing, so he gets ready to shut him down. "Yeah, three. I had one steady girl in grad school. My next two longest relationships have been with the same woman. I haven't hooked up with every woman in the metro area. And you can't see her face if it's too dark, your eyes are closed, you're behind her, you're going down on her, or she doesn't get off." That last bit makes Tony scoff. "Oh stop that. Eighteen-year-old virgin Tony did not get his first girl off, either."

"I was sixteen, and you're probably right about that."

"Probably?" Tim gives him his _cut the bullshit_ look.

"Okay, yes, you're right about that. So, you do it because it's pretty?"

Okay, this is better. Tony's looking more curious than bothered right now. "You use the rope because it's pretty. If it's just about not moving, well, I've got handcuffs for that, and they're a lot faster."

And that shot curious to Hell. "Oh God, am I ever going to be able to look at your cuffs without imagining—"

"I don't use my work cuffs for that."

"Thank God. But you do use cuffs?"

"Sometimes. You know, for when we don't plan things out days in advance, but still want to do something different."

"Sounds rapey."

"Rapey?" Tim puts his head in his hands and groans in frustration. Then he looks up again. "You've never actually done anything like this with a girl, have you?"

"No! If I come at a girl with handcuffs, she's gonna run away, because that's a sign things are about to go very wrong."

"That's because you don't get to know the women you sleep with! Okay, Binding 101: trust. Her good time is, literally, in my hands... or mouth, I guess..." Tony's getting that disturbed look again. "Anyway. She's trusting me to treat her right. She's letting me control everything, and putting her body in my hands for our mutual pleasure. Can you get how big of a deal that is?"

Tony shrugs.

"Maybe it can't be explained. Either you get it or you don't. I get it. Abby gets it. And honestly, beyond the fact that nothing is happening that she doesn't want to happen, you don't need to get it."

"I want... Damnit... You're my best friend, and I want to get it. I don't want to think of you doing bad things to your girlfriend." Tony looks shockingly earnest as he says that, and it freaks Tim out on several levels.

"It's not bad!" And it's not, and he hates the idea that Tony might think it is. He's used to people thinking he's weird. That's more or less his default setting. But, with the exception of his dad, no one he's cared about has ever thought his interests were 'bad.' Granted with the exception of Abby, no one else has ever really known about this particular set of interests.

"So you say."

"God, you are such a prude!" And yeah, that was probably mean, but he's feeling very defensive right now.

"I'm a prude because I don't like whips or chains?"

"No whips, no chains, and you're a prude because you can't get over the idea that if you don't like something no one else is allowed to like it either! Seriously, do you think Gibbs or Ducky or Palmer would be freaking out about this?"

"McGee, just, yuck, okay. I don't want to know what sorts of things Autopsy Gremlin gets up to with his wife, and I'm sure Ducky has an at least 3,000 word long monologue about the art of erotic knot tying, but I don't want to hear it, and Gibbs wouldn't freak out, he'd just calmly kill you if he knew what you were doing to Abby."

"_With_ Abby, not _to_ her, and no he wouldn't. He'd just get that exasperated look and file it under 'stuff McGee likes I don't understand' and leave it at that. And you should, too. It's just another sort roleplaying, sexy D&D for grown-ups. Shove it in your own 'stuff McGee likes I don't understand' file and let it go."

"It's creepy."

Tim tries very hard not to roll his eyes and ends up looking at the roof of the car as a result. He sighs. "Okay, Tony, what sort of sex should I like?"

"You know, plain, normal, American sex."

"The kind of sex you like?"

"Yes!"

"Meaningless casual encounters with women who won't remember me more than two days later? Why would I want that? Why should I like the same kind of sex you do? I'm not having sex with you!

"Look, I don't like the same movies you do. I don't like the same books. I only like some of the same foods." Tim stares at Tony for a while, getting the sense that this is close to something important, but not really there. He's having a hard time getting it just by looking so he switches from the DiNozzo in front of him to the version in his stories, and tries to figure out what would be motivating Tommy if he was freaking out like this. "Is it the idea that of the two of us, you're not the most sexually experienced, is that what's bothering you?"

"Not the most... Every girl in the greater DC area! They've got to ship 'em in from Baltimore and Richmond to find women I haven't slept with."

"Having exactly the same encounter with seven hundred different women doesn't count as variety or experience."

"It should."

"But it doesn't. This isn't about me or Abby. It's you. You've got this idea of yourself, worldly, experienced, sophisticated, and you walked in on something you've not only never done, but being done by me, someone you consider naive. You expect that if I've done it, you've done it too, a thousand times over, and probably better. No, that's not right. You couldn't care less about most of the stuff I've done, you aren't angsting about novels or code; you never expect to do it. If I've done something that matters to you, you assume you've done it, too, a thousand times over, and better."

Tony doesn't say anything, but Tim can see from his expression this is hitting him, hard. He's thinking about it. Out of the corner of Tim's eye he catches something moving. "We gotta go; the guy in the blue jacket just left the house."

And with that the conversation ended as they began tailing a suspect.


	27. Rule 12A

Gibbs expects certain things to happen with his team. Tim and Abby, he'd been waiting for that for years, and he was honestly surprised that it took them that long to get 'round to it. Tony and Ziva, he's got a feeling where that's going, and it worries him.

And whatever the hell that's going on with Tony and Tim has him boggled. Tim dating Abby should not be sending Tony into a sulk. But something happened, and now the two of them aren't working together properly.

So it's got to get fixed.

He's in the car with Tim, driving to question a suspect. "What's going on with you and DiNozzo?"

Tim shrugs. "He saw something he shouldn't have, and it's got him rattled."

"Unrattle him."

"I can't. It's all about him on this one."

"This is why you tell your partner about what is going on in your life."

Tim sighs. "You're my boss. You're pretty much Abby's dad, and for that matter, mine. So, no I was not going to tell Tony before I told you. It would have been disrespectful." Gibbs digests that, feeling very proud of Tim at that moment. But, he's got to get this back on track.

"You told Ziva and Palmer."

"I asked Palmer for advice, and Ziva caught me. Otherwise she would have found out after you, too."

Gibbs thinks about that, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. "Is that why Tony's sulking? You went behind his back, and he was last to know?"

"No. Literally, he saw something he shouldn't have. I told you Friday night, then went home, Abby was over. We had plans with Tony, Ziva, and the Palmers for Saturday, and we were going to tell him then. I had the door locked, but he broke in and then walked into my room when he should have turned around. And if he had just turned around when he heard what was up, I assume he'd be fine with this. But he walked into my room and _saw_, so he's rattled."

Gibbs can see from the way Tim is looking at him that he hopes that's enough to get the idea across that fixing this is outside of his hands. Gibbs thinks about it. If Tony saw something that really freaked him out, it's possible that Tim might not be able to fix this. His eyes scanning the road in front of them, he slips the car into the next lane of traffic which looks like it's moving a little bit faster.

"You should get a chain on your door."

"Already installed it. And one at Abby's. And on my bedroom door, too." Gibbs nods at that, appreciating the thoroughness. "Though, honestly, I don't think he's walking in again anytime soon, and I hope, for that matter, you and Fornell aren't, either."

Gibbs smiles.

"You know nothing happened with Diane, right? I'm not going to screw your ex-wife, and I'm never fooling around on Abby."

Gibbs gets that exasperate look. "McGee, do you think I might know what Diane looks like in the morning after having sex?"

"Yeah."

He gives Tim the leave it alone look.

"So we never have to talk about that again?"

Gibbs nods. "If you can't fix this thing with DiNozzo, what can?"

Tim has that especially frustrated look he gets when he runs into something he doesn't know how to even being dealing with. "I don't know. We talked a few times, but I think that might have made it worse. You could try talking to him. He's got an idea of himself, and he saw something to challenge that, and doesn't know how to deal with it."

Gibbs' look is questioning. Unfortunately if he's going to fix this he's got to find out what actually happened, and right now, he really doesn't want to know. Tim can see his first idea of what might be going on and shakes his head. "No, not like he saw Abby naked and suddenly he's madly jealous. Nothing like that."

"What then? I need you two working together."

"Fine. Okay." Tim's blushing from his forehead all the way down his neck but he sounds more exasperated than embarrassed. "He basically found out he doesn't have the biggest dick, and he can't handle it." Gibbs' eyes go wide, that wasn't on the list of things he thought might have been going on, and Tim has the satisfaction of seeing him utterly dumbstruck. "Not literally, well, maybe he did, I don't know, and I don't want to know. But I'm using it as a metaphor, 'cause honestly, you don't need to know what precisely he saw."

If anything Gibbs' eyes get wider, but then it seems to click, and he settles further back into the car seat. He nods, getting a plan together for dealing with this.

"You gonna talk to him?" Tim asks.

"Yeah."

Tim takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, opens them slowly and turns to face Gibbs. "Look, if the words 'doing freaky things to Abby' come up, before you kill me, I'd like you to remember, Tony thinks it's freaky, not me or Abby, and it's _with_ Abby not _to_ her."

Gibbs massages his temples and sighs. This might not be why he wrote rule number twelve in the first place, but it's certainly proving to be yet another excellent reason for it. Rule Number 12A: Do not walk in on your partner having sex.

But McGee is staring at him, looking a bit worried, so he's got to get the man in his car calmed down, and then he can get the next one taken care of. "Tim, you make her cry, I might kill ya. You break her heart, and I will. But I'm not going to do anything to you for something you both want to do."

"I told him that. But... look, no matter what he says, I'm not hurting her."

Gibbs is suddenly feeling very old and very unhappy to have to get that far into Tim and Abby's private life. "I didn't want to know this."

"Yeah, well, talking to you about this wasn't on my list of dearest hopes, either." Gibbs looks at Tim as he says that and smiles, liking that response very much.

* * *

Hours later, he's in the car with Tony.

Usually Tony is the easier of the two them to deal with. A few quick words, the occasional slap upside the head, and Tony's good to go. But right now Tim seems pretty firmly wrapped in a blanket of confident, _I'm in the right,_ and Tony doesn't look like he knows what to do with himself.

"What's going on with you and McGee?"

Tony continues to stare out the window, not answering.

"Come on, out with it. I need you two working together."

"Talking about it won't fix it."

"Why not?" Okay, sure, Gibbs is in favor of not talking issues to death and just letting them fade away. But this is his team, and his boys don't work that way. They need to talk, get things out, deal with them, and then move on.

Tony shakes his head.

Time for the big guns. "Fornell and I didn't talk for five years." Which was exactly as long as they needed to not talk about it to let it fade into an annoying chapter of their mutual history that they can both occasionally poke each other with.

"Whoa, Boss, McGee's not sleeping with...or... wait... Where the hell are you going with this?"

"Tobias slept with mine, and that hits you hard, hits your idea of being a man."

"Oh God, you talked to McGee first." Tony sounds disgusted at that.

Gibbs looks says, _'Well, that's obvious, now, isn't it?"_

"Look, he's got this crazy idea..."

Gibbs' look shifted to, _Really? Crazy?_

"Okay, maybe it's not totally insane, but that doesn't mean it's right."

"Then get over it."

"I'm trying."

"Try harder. I don't want my team going to hell, and you're going to regret spending years not getting along with McGee over something as silly as sex."

"It's not sex, really. It's... I don't know...It's what sex represents? What if Tim's not the guy you think he is?"

_Good Lord, what the hell did Tony walk in on? He worked vice for God's sake, nothing's new to... Oh..._ And Gibbs suddenly gets it. Tony worked vice. Tony worked homicide. Tony's seen everything, broken up domestic disputes, and like most cops probably beaten the hell out of a few guys when their wives or girlfriends wouldn't press charges. He's seen everything at least once, everything done by bad guys to hurt women. But Tim's a computer guy who likes to get dressed up, pretend to be someone else, and play games. Hell, it's possible that Tim doesn't even get the idea that for some people things like this aren't a game. Gibbs can see it: Tim and Abby were playing. For them, whatever Tony walked in on was just a game: fun, innocent (or at least as innocent as whatever they were doing can get) and a little (or maybe not so little) kinky. For Tim this is some sort of indecipherable issue where Tony's just being really weird. For Tony this is something he used to arrest scumbags for.

Then Gibbs gets the next level of it. Tony's already had one partner who seemed like a decent guy but was screwing around behind his back.

_Shit!_

Gibbs makes sure he's got eye contact with Tony when he says, "Tim's _exactly_ the man I think he is."

"Are you sure about that?" And he can see that Tony is deadly serious in the question and desperately wants Gibbs' answer to erase his own doubts.

Gibbs stops the car. Right now he's got to have enough certainty to wipe out the memory of Tony's last partner and enough conviction to override however many years Tony might have in his head of seeing guys who do things like whatever they were doing as perverts.

"Yeah, Tony. He is. No matter what he's doing with Abby, he's still a decent, honorable, hardworking, trustworthy man. He's still a damn good agent. He still has my back and yours. He is still the man who will take a bullet for you, or put one in someone else for you. He's still our family."

Tony sighs and seems to relax a little. "What if I'm not the guy I think I am?" Gibbs feels mildly surprised to see there was more under that top layer and settles in, sure they aren't going anywhere for a while, because he's got the feeling this one is going to go deep.

"You are. No matter what Tim's doing, you're still the guy you think you are. No matter what you're doing, he's still himself. Measuring yourself against him won't help."

"I know." Tony flashes him a limp smile. "He's smarter than I am. Fine, that was never a big deal. And he's better with computers. Great, he can compute all he wants. These days you need a geek on the team to do the job right. But I'm supposed to be better with women. But I'm alone, and he's got a girl who adores him. I'm supposed to be more experienced... and then I see him... Just... ugh... I just never expected him to be doing something like that."

"I felt the same way about Fornell romancing my wife." Gibbs smiles drily.

"Yeah, but it bit Fornell in the ass a few years later."

Gibbs smiles at Tony again. They don't say anything for a moment, and Gibbs is thinking this might be done so he reaches for the keys.

"McGee says you're Ziva's partner."

Gibbs nods, dropping his hand.

"He says you're cool with him and Abby."

Gibbs nods again. Because he is. Has been since they were dating the first time. DiNozzo sat McGee down and explained rule twelve to him, after he broke up with Abby. Gibbs never said anything about it to McGee, because he didn't want to scare Tim off of Abby.

That Tim will treat Abby the way she deserves to be treated is something Gibbs is certain of. That Tim would grow up enough to be able to handle Abby; that he hadn't been certain of, though it looks like that has indeed come true. But that he'd ever hurt her, no that had never been something Gibbs worried about.

"He's not sure you'd be cool with me and Ziva."

Gibbs sighs. It's easy to forget how much McGee sees about the world around him. And he thinks he sees more of what Tim missed about why Tony's in a funk.

"I'm not sure if I am."

"What, McGee's good enough to be your son-in-law, but I'm not?"

_Oh yeah. Not just sex, but favorite son status as well. How did McGee manage to hit all of Tony's insecurities in one move?_ Gibbs spends a moment looking for how to say this so it won't sound like a comparison between Tim and Tony.

"It's not about you. Ziva needs this job. She has to protect people. She has to find the bad guys and hunt them down. You don't. You want to do it. But she has to do it. And I do, too. That's why she's my partner. In a few years they'll make me retire, and while you'll end up in charge of the team, she'll be the one who keeps it going. She gets in early, stays late, and rarely rests while we're on the hunt.

"And you're lonely right now. I get that. Been there. Done that. Got three ex-wives to show for it. But she might not be the person who can give you the attention you want. She's married to the job right now, which means she can't be married to you."

"Who's talking married?"

Gibbs decides to not bring up DiNozzo's son-in-law comment. "I am. And here's the re-written version of rule number twelve for you concerning Ziva, and, if she ever asks, for her concerning you. If you aren't willing to marry her, do not date her. You know her more than well enough at this point to figure out if it's an option, and if it's not, don't date her. You two fool around, and it doesn't work out, it will kill our team."

"So, you're worried about Ziva blowing this, not me?"

"No, Tony, it's not about anyone blowing anything. She just might not be the answer to the question you're asking."

"And that's not an issue for McGee and Abby?"

"No, it's not. Give it a few years and they'll have little McGees running around a house in the 'burbs."

"They will, won't they? Tiny baby McGees in pig tails and black diapers."

"Yeah. Three years, they'll force me to retire, and when that happens Vance already has McGee pegged to take over DC Cybercrime. He's hoping to get him to turn it into the main NCIS cybercrime unit and then shut down Okinawa. Norfolk is closing down and consolidating with us in the next two years, so Abby'll have lab help soon. They'll have regular hours. McGee'll have desk job. Abby won't be dreading the day you show up at the end of a hunt without him."

"Living the dream."

"Yeah."

"I want the dream."

"Then you've got to find someone who can dream it with you. Or you've got to change your version to fit hers."

* * *

A/N: So I know some of you had been wondering what was up with DiNozzo over the last few chapters, and I think we're finally at the answer. Anyway, one of the things I was hoping to do with this is show that though Tim and Tony are good friends, they don't necessarily get each other. And also to demonstrate that just because Tim thinks something is going on doesn't necessarily mean he's right. (Not that his read on Tony was wrong, it just wasn't complete.)

Happy Friday everyone!


	28. Mourning

Tim was right, the next time they gathered together to mourn, he was the one she turned to.

And he had been hoping that it would have been later rather than sooner.

But it happened, because nothing holds death at bay for good. It's always there, waiting to jump out.

They made food for Ziva, kosher jambalaya, because it's a mitzvah to feed those who mourn, and took it to her, something to eat for the flight home. And she stood by his side, head on his shoulder, when they helped lay Mrs. Vance to rest.

And the one thing Death does, always does, though the further it slips out of memory the duller it gets, is sharpen priorities and make personal frictions seem insignificant.

Hours later, when the funeral was over, and Ziva flying home, Tim said to Tony, who looked like he might be contemplating doing something stupid and romantic, "Tony, I want you to remember something, she's an orphan now. She's thirty-one and has buried every other member of her immediate family. She's hurting. She's vulnerable. And if you don't want to screw this up, you'll pull back, lay low, and be a good friend."

"When she cries, I want to hold her," Tony says, looking beyond Tim to the memory of Ziva's back as she boarded the plane.

"Then hold her. But for right now, shove her in the sister column and keep her there."

Tony nods, that he can do. That he has been doing. Though when he mentioned thinking about everything all the time, he'd come awfully close to saying something... maybe not stupid, but given the timing, unwelcome.

"We okay?" Tim asks, pulling him back to the here and now.

"Yeah."

"Good."

"Tim?" He focuses on Tim, and sees McGee look a little startled, probably because this is likely the first time he's used his first name in a year or three.

"Yeah?"

"I am happy for you and Abby."

"Thanks, Tony."


	29. For Abby: Lying Nake In My Arms

It was a sheet of heavy, good quality stationary, folded in half, and propped on Abby's keyboard. On it was her name in Tim's handwriting.

She opened it and found, also handwritten:

For Abby: Lying Naked In My Arms

You're sleeping right now,

and I'm not about to wake you to tell you this.

So, I'll write it, if I remember when I wake.

(Looks like I did.)

But I feel like

with you curved into my arms

that you were made for me.

I know that's not right.

You were made for no one but you.

So maybe it's coincidence,

(Though we don't believe in coincidence.)

or possibly luck, amazingly good luck,

(Because we do believe in luck.)

that your neck is the exact right length for my arm to fit under it.

Or that your back snugs perfectly against my chest,

and that our legs tangle together seamlessly.

I lie here, in what's rapidly becoming our bed,

feeling you breathe against me,

smelling the cucumber perfume of your hair,

and I know what peace is,

and blessed is suddenly more than a trite syllable to express fortune,

and I drift off, never wanting to sleep alone again.

—Tim


	30. McScuitos

They're lying on Abby's bed during the hour or so between brushing teeth and going to sleep. She's on her side reading, wearing a pair of black boxer shorts and the top of her black men's pajamas with the little sleeping skeletons in night caps on it. He's on his stomach, wearing a pair of red and black flannel pajama bottoms, propped on a pillow and his elbows, typing away on his laptop.

One change that having a relationship wrought on Tim was switching from the typewriter to a word processor for his fiction. He certainly prefers the process of writing on the typewriter, but he'd also gotten so far behind his deadline by only writing when he was at his place, that he had to change because lugging his typewriter to and from Abby's just wasn't practical.

Meanwhile, his editor has just about jumped joy of having an actual electronic document to work with.

Abby looked up from her book, marking the page with her finger.

"I was thinking..."

His fingers don't stop typing. "One sec, I'm in the middle of a thought." He winds down three minutes later, and takes his ear buds out, silencing the jazz that had been accompanying his thoughts. "Thanks. They never come out quite right if you stop in the middle. Okay, I'm all yours, what are you thinking?"

"How would you feel about both of us getting tested and then ditching the condoms?"

For a second he doesn't say anything. He's quite surprised and very happy. "I'd really like that." Then he thinks a moment longer. "Are you thinking of going on another sort of birth control, or are you thinking babies?"

She laughs at that. "I was thinking it'd be nice to feel your skin on mine, and not having to stop and fetch them. Not much beyond that. So, yeah, starting up on Depo or something."

"Okay. Yeah, I'd really like that."

They sit there without saying anything for a long minute. He's looking at his screen, but not typing, that turn of conversation more or less derailed any thoughts of what Tibbs was about to do next.

She puts her book down, rolls onto her stomach and scoots a few inches closer to him, her right shoulder against his left. "Do you want babies?"

Tim met her eyes and then leaned forward, kissing her lips. "I want babies with you."

She appears pleased, a little startled, and there might be a hint of fear in her eyes. "Now?"

He smiles. "Now's good. Later is good. Whenever it happens is good."

"What if I don't want babies?"

He thinks about that for a long time. Being a father is certainly something he wants, but it's not integral to his self-concept. "If you don't want them, I'll skip them. But I'd like to make some McSciutos with you."

Now she looks amused. "McSciutos? Plural? How many are you thinking?"

"Two? Three? At least one, fewer than five." He shrugs as well as he can lying propped on his elbows. "We still haven't settled on if you want them at all, so maybe it's a good idea to get that figured out first. Do you want them at all?"

It's her turn to think. For a few seconds her head rests on his shoulder, and he can feel her hair brushing along his naked back. "Yeah. I think I do. I guess I never really thought much about it. Beyond knowing I didn't want to do it alone."

He kisses her again and then pulls back, squeezing her hand. "If we do this, as long as I'm alive, you'll never be alone."

She kisses him, eyes closed, enjoying the promise of those words. "Yes. McSciutos." She started to smile, the idea becoming more real. "But not right now. I'd like to enjoy just being us for a while longer."

He grins, a wide happy gesture that beams off of him. "I like that idea, too."

* * *

I post these stories on my blog as well, often with pictures of one sort or another. Anyway while searching the web, I found shot someone posted of Sean Murray and Pauley Perette morphed together and babied, you know, a McScuito. Anyway, if you want to see, charactersaremyheroin dot blogspot dot com /2013/03/shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_12 dot html


	31. Needles

Two days later, they're in Abby's lab with Palmer, and needles.

"I hate needles. I really hate them," he says staring at the tray with the syringes on it sitting in front of Abby's computer.

Abby squeezes Tim's hand. "You'll be fine."

"I'm good at blood draws. None of my patients ever complain," Jimmy says with a smile, soaking a cotton ball in alcohol.

"Jimmy, your patients are dead."

"Minor point. Roll up your sleeve and let's get this done."

Tim was starting to think that doing this in Abby's lab wasn't the best idea ever. First of all, neither of them knows how to wield a hypodermic, which meant getting Palmer or Ducky involved, and well, if it was going to be one of them, Palmer was the obvious choice. Secondly, he's wondering if Director Craig is going to end up down here wondering why NCIS ordered two STD panels as well as two HIV tests.

Tim rolled up his sleeve and looked away. There's a tiny pinch, a miniscule burning sensation, and Jimmy says, "Flex your fingers."

"That's it?" Tim stares at the syringe in his arm, the vial slowly filling with his blood.

"I told you I was good at this. You forget I'm a doctor, which means I worked with live patients before becoming a medical examiner. I spent six months working out of a clinic where 95% of the cases I saw involved blood draws of one sort or another. I can do this blindfolded in my sleep."

Tim wonders a bit what having Jimmy Palmer for a doctor must have been like. "Why does Ducky call you Mr. Palmer?"

"Because I wasn't a doctor when I started here. By the time I had my MD, the name stuck, and he's been calling me Mr. Palmer ever since."

"Huh." The idea of Jimmy finishing up medical school while working here was nothing that had ever occurred to Tim. "You have hidden talents."

"I'm a good cook, too."

"Is there anything you can't do?" Abby asks.

"I'm a terrible ice skater. Can't stay up on skates to save my life. That's why the idea of naked ice hockey was so terrifying." He swaps out one of the tubes for another one. "You're almost done; then we can get Abby."

A minute later, Tim was holding a cotton ball to the crook of his arm, and Palmer was taking Abby's blood.

A minute after that Palmer handed the last tube to Abby. "Here you go. Good luck on the results."

"Thanks."

"It's pretty cool you're getting tested together," Palmer says while disposing of the sharps. "I had to do that quietly, on my own."

"Breena didn't get tested?" Abby asks.

"She waited until we got married. I had some skeletons in my closet that I had to make sure hadn't bit me, but she didn't."

Abby and Tim just stared at Palmer for a moment, then Tim said, "So that's what you meant about expectations being high."

He smiles a little sheepishly. "Yeah."

"I am really sorry you missed your honeymoon," Abby said.

"You have no idea!"

"I'm starting to get one. So, really, not until your wedding?" She seems amazed by the idea.

"Technically not until a week after." Palmer says a few extraordinarily rude things about Harper Dearing under his breath followed by, "Longest two years of my life. But so worth it, you've got no idea what releasing that kind of build-up is like."

Tim looks at Abby, quickly kisses her, and says to Palmer, "Nine years. I've got a clue."

* * *

A/N: Sooo... Mr. Palmer. Why does Ducky call you that? My first answer, that he didn't have an MD died shortly after Jimmy took over for Ducky when he was sick. If Jimmy can take the place of acting Medical Examiner, that means he's qualified for the job. Mainly, he's got to have an MD.

As for waiting until they got married, yes, I remember that Jimmy is the superstud of Autopsy. But I also remember him talking about expectations being high when it came to making babies. I chose to believe that comment meant he and Breena waited until they got married, which I think is pretty cool.


	32. Like a Virgin

And then there was waiting. Waiting for the results, four hours. All was good on that front, much to no one's surprise. Depo Provera, or any hormonal birth control, for that matter, isn't the sort of thing you can just fetch and start using as soon as you like. So there was waiting for Abby's period to show up, to wander off, for the doctor's appointment that last day, and then one more day for it to fully kick in.

Okay, so it wasn't nine years, or two for that matter, and it wasn't like there was no sex at all, but Tim was really looking forward to saying goodbye to the condoms.

Finally, after a day of work that seemed to go on and on and on some more, he was back at his place, on his sofa, with Abby in his lap, kissing her intently.

She pulled back and unzipped his pants, and he looked up at her, kissing her again. "So, the thing is, this might be really fast."

"McGee?" She's looking at him, not understanding why he'd say that.

He looks a little chagrinned. "I've never done this without a condom."

"Never?" Curiosity replaces lack of understanding.

He shakes his head. "Never."

"You're a virgin!" And full on bubbly Abby excitement replaces curiosity.

He half shrugs. "I guess, sort of... But... anyway, I understand it's a lot more intense without one, so... things might be faster than usual."

"I can deal with that." She stands up, smiling gently, and he looks at her, question in his eyes. "Come on, if we're gonna deflower you, we might as well do it right, you know, in bed." She holds out her hand to him, and begins to loosen one of her pigtails with the other.

"Candlelight, flowers, and love poetry, too?"

She giggles. "Don't press your luck."

He sticks out his tongue at her, stands up, and gives her his hand. "I write you love poems."

"You're a writer," she says while they walk into his room. "The next time you want romantic lab work done, I'm your girl."

"What would romantic lab work be?" he asks while unbuttoning his shirt. She faces him, kissing his throat, and chest, shooing his hands away, taking over removing his clothing.

"I have no idea. Hearts on your computer keyboard?"

He smiles and kisses the side of her neck that doesn't have her hair falling down on it. "I'll hold you to that. I want little black hearts on my keyboard."

"Black?"

"Somehow I don't see you putting little pink ones on my keyboard."

"Prepare to be amazed, McGee. I shall romance you in the lab beyond your imagination." Her hands drop to the waistband of his pants, unbuttoning, finishing what she had started a few minutes ago. He kicks off the pants and toes off his socks, while Abby slowly drew her shirt over her head.

She had on the little red bra. It's all lace with demi cups, and he adores how she looks in it. His hands span her back and pull her close. "Keep the bra on?"

"I can do that."

He unbuttons the fly on her jeans, and skims the red and black plaid fabric down her legs, pulling them gently over each foot as she balances on one and then the other. Tim kisses he thighs, her belly, and over her panties, also red and lacy.

"I love you in red. You look so amazing like this."

Her lips spread into a wide, pleased smile. "Thanks. Maybe I'll do my hair red one day."

Tim stands, pulling her flush to his chest, and grinds against her. "You feel how much I like that idea? Not saying I don't like your black hair, but I'd love to see you with red." He kisses her, sweetly this time, "I'd love to see your real hair color, too."

She strokes his face, fingers skimming cheekbones and eyebrows. Then she squirms out of her panties and gracefully falls back onto the bed.

He all but leaps after her, landing next to her, making the bed creak in protest. He's on his side, and so is she, his penis between her legs as they kiss and pet. Talking a little, making love a little, enjoying each other and not hurrying.

He likes being cradled between her legs, always has, it's warm and soft and snug, and he can thrust a bit to keep things focused properly. This time though, she hooks her leg over his hip, scooting down an inch so he's right against her, wet pubic hair tickling him, enticing him, and he sighs, knowing he doesn't have to roll over and fetch a condom.

Abby rolls him on top of her.

He props himself on his elbows while she squirms encouragingly against him. "Missionary?"

"Thought you might want to be able to control your speed and depth."

"Probably a good idea."

She reaches between them and gives him a little help on getting the right angle. For a moment he just waits, because for the first time he can actually feel what it's like to be touching her and anticipate slipping in. It's wet and hot, and the softest thing he's ever felt, and just being against her feels better than he thought anything possibly could.

She kisses him sweetly, and pushes her hips at him. "It's even better inside."

He nods, biting his lip, looking into her eyes, and eases forward. He inhales sharply, almost whistling and exhales a long "Oh..." He settles into her, holding still, not too afraid of getting off instantly, but he definitely wants to enjoy this. He wants to fully feel it, so he can remember all of it.

"You're so beautiful right now," she says stroking his face.

"God...That's... really nice."

"Really nice?" She's grinning, enjoying sharing this with him.

His eyes close, and he tries to focus. He's having a hard time talking. Tony's comment about not remembering his name would be springing to mind if he could remember it. "Ask me later, when I can think."

She kisses him, and he begins to move, tentatively. Mostly just getting used to how hot and wet and slick she is. With a condom, mostly there's just the sensation of warmth, pressure, and glide. And warm and pressure and glide are nice, but this is... This is beyond words good.

Her legs wrap around his hips and he can slip in a little deeper, and yeah, that's even better. He tries a few really fast strokes, and decides for right now that's too much of a good thing. Slow gives him time to really feel, and he's enjoying that.

He lowers himself fully onto her, knowing he can't do that for too long without squishing her, but for right now he wants her whole body against his.

He's not really moving, he's just lying there, in her, feeling her on and around him.

He kisses her again, murmuring, "I love you, Abby," against her lips.

"Love you, too, Tim."

He thrusts again, slow, feeling her body clinging to his, sliding wetly along him. "God, this is so good. Love you, Abby. Love this. Just, fuck, love."

She kisses him again, her tongue wet and soft and slow, and he rolls her on top of them.

"Want to see you, all of you, as well as feel you."

She straddles him, his hands on her hips, giving her a good idea of what speed he wants, still slow, and she beings to finger herself, which is almost too much erotic input at one time. He takes her hands in his, kissing them. "Promise, you can do that later, but I'll get off if I watch you do it now."

"I don't mind if you get off."

"I do. I don't want this to end."

He sits up, holding her hands behind her back, face to face and belly to belly with her. "Want to touch all of you, too." He turns them a little, so he can see them in the mirror over the dresser.

He holds her close to him, kissing her, staring in her eyes, and periodically looking at her in the mirror. "Love this, I can feel you all over and see you at the same time."

"Love you, too."

They say that, a lot, and move slowly, for a long time, a very long time. And eventually he does lay back down, his hands on her hips, her fingers on herself, and he watches and thrusts and feels enveloped in an almost glowing orgasm. Like she was transmuted from flesh to light, and rising and falling on him became pure soul, and Tim might not be a terribly religious or spiritual man, but right that second he believed in angels with all of his heart.

Later, as she snuggled up next to him, and he discovered the highly overrated joys of laying on the wet spot he said to her, "That was worth waiting 35 years for."


	33. Pillow Talk

He should be sleepy. He's usually sleepy after sex, unless it's morning sex, but that's a different story all together. But, even though that had been one amazingly, mind-blowingly intense orgasm, he was feeling mostly just relaxed and peaceful.

Tim checked the clock. The fact that it was nine thirty might have had something to do with the lack of sleepy.

He kissed Abby, got up, and grabbed a towel from the bathroom. He folded it neatly over the wet spot, and then snuggled back in next to her. She curled onto her side, facing him.

"What was your first time like, the real one?"

He smiles widely. "You remember, you were there."

For a second she stiffened and her eyes went wide. He kept grinning, and she poked him, hard, in the ribs. "Don't do that!"

"Apparently I'm a Horus. I've got an inexhaustible supply of virginity." He kissed her quickly, and then adjusted the pillow a bit. If they were going to talk, it'd be good to be comfortable. Then he took her hand in his, kissing it as well, and settled back down.

"So, really, how was it?"

"Amazing, the world stood still, time went backwards, and the angels wept." He shook his head. "I was nineteen and desperate to give it away. There was exactly one girl in my Cellular Bio-Chem class and she was my lab partner. I guess she sort of took pity on me. We went out three times, and on the third time, we got together. And, honestly, it was fast. I think I was more excited by the idea of having sex than the sex itself. I remember thinking, 'Oh, yeah, that's...' and we were done. It wasn't precisely the crowning glory of my sexual history."

"Did you love her?"

"I think I had a crush on her. Or maybe I just really wanted to have one on her. Or it might have been she was a girl, kind of attractive, and willing to touch me. I was pretty disappointed when she wouldn't see me again."

"I'm sorry she didn't take you seriously."

Tim shrugged. "Long time ago. How about you? How was your first, I mean besides in a cab?"

She smiles, very pleased to see he remembered that. "I was kidding about the cab thing. Not nearly fast enough." Tim looked confused, when it comes to things women want, a real speedy ejaculator usually isn't on the list. "I was seventeen and had been dating this guy for about six months. Both of us college freshmen, and he was... Well, it felt like he was packing a cannon, but it probably wasn't that big. Just, first time and all. So I remember being extremely eager, very, very turned on and then OUCH. I was crying, but trying to be quiet because it was his first time, too. It took a minute or two before he noticed and stopped."

"That sounds horrible."

"I've had better times. And it did get better. We dated all of freshman year."

Tim really didn't know what to say to that, so he nudged the topic a bit. "I loved my first time with you."

She smiled. "That was a really good first time."

"I was so nervous; my hands were shaking when I began to unbutton my shirt. Afraid you'd get my clothing off, take one look at me and go, nope, too fat, too vanilla."

"Too vanilla? That was you, last week, who put the collar you had made specifically for me around my neck, bound my hands behind my back, had me kneel in front of you and get you off with my mouth alone, and then stood me up, freed my hands, supported my weight with your body, told me to get myself off while you pulled the collar tighter and tighter and tighter so that when I got off I saw stars, right?"

Tim smiled. That was a good memory. Not the kind of thing they did too often, but oh yeah, lots of fun.

"McGee, have you ever seen a vanilla bean?"

"In real life?"

She nodded.

"Nope."

"They're about this long," she held her hands about six inches apart, "and dark, dark brown or black. The really good ones have these tiny little crystals on them, so between the oils and those crystals they almost shimmer. McGee, if you're vanilla, you're one of those Tahitian vanilla beans, dark and shimmering, smelling sweet and perfumy with undertones of forbidden pleasures and desire. I like vanilla, real vanilla, not whatever it is they put in McDonald's ice cream, and you are real vanilla."

"Dark and delicious?"

"In a pale and mostly blondish sort of way."

He ran his fingers through his hair. The longer he wears it and the more time he's in the sun, the lighter it gets, which is why it's pretty much entirely dark brown now. "I haven't been blond in years."

She stroked the hairs that began just below his navel and trailed down. "These still are."

"I hadn't really thought of that." He supposes those are sort of blondish, maybe, in the right light.

"Nope?"

"Nope. I don't spend too much time pondering my pubes. They're just sort of there."

She laughed at that, and he laughed with her.

"The first time I saw you, I thought you were a vanilla bean. Still green, but there was a lot of potential there."

"Green?"

"They're the seed pods of orchids. They start out green, and then they do something to them, fermentation, drying, roasting, all three? I'm not sure, but somehow they turn black and delicious." Tim nodded. "I saw you and I just knew that under that suit and nervous exterior there was something tasty."

"I'm so glad you decided I was worth tasting."

"I am, too."

They lay there, holding hands, he's stroking her fingers, feeling the long slender taper of them, the slightly rough spot on her index fingernail where it broke recently, and the small callous she's got on her right thumb from capping the lids onto the specimen test tubes for Major Mass Spec.

"Which tattoo was your first?"

"You know the P on my wrist?"

"Yeah." His thumb slips down to touch it.

"I was fourteen, and my best friend and I hitchhiked to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. We went out to party and drink, and we both had fake ids. So, we're in the Quarter, having a blast and she said, 'Let's get tattoos.' It seemed like a really good idea, so off we went. Her name was Paulette, so I got a P on my wrist, and she got an A on hers."

"That's so cute."

"The next year we got the smiley faces on our fingers."

"Awww..."

"And the year after that we got the angels. I'd be looking over her, and she'd be looking over me."

"Did you get all your tats with her?"

"No, that was the last year. The next Mardi Gras I was seventeen, in college at LSU and she had gone to Ole Miss. We lost track of each other over the years."

"You ever want to find her again?"

"Sometimes. I've looked a few times, but no dice."

"I bet I could find her for you. I am a cop, and kind of handy with a computer, you know?"

She smiled wryly, "Yeah, I noticed that. The badge was a tip off. But... If I can't find her because something happened to her, I'd rather not know. I don't want to know that I live in a world that doesn't have her in it."

He lifts her hand to his lips and kisses it. "I can understand that. One of my grade school buddies died three years ago. And it wasn't like we were close or anything. Not even Facebook friends. But I'd think about him every year or so, wonder how he was, and now... Now I know. I never thought I'd have to know he wasn't around any longer."

"Yeah. I don't exactly miss her, but I like to think of her as happy."

He kissed the tiny smiley face on her middle finger. "And getting new tats and new adventures."

"Yeah, maybe telling someone special about how she got hers." She's touching his fingers now, mapping them by feel. "So my vanilla bean, how did you get into this?"

"This?"

"You know. Most guys don't just wake up one day and think, 'Collars. I really like collars. And maybe, if you put one on someone, and tighten it during sex, that might result in a really intense orgasm.'"

"Gotcha. And no, it wasn't like I woke up two months ago and out of the blue thought, 'Abby needs another collar. One from me. Ohhh and some wrist cuffs to go with it.' Well, I mean, yeah, two months ago I was thinking that, but it wasn't out of the blue. So, do you want to know about how I got into"—Tim doesn't much like using the word kink to explain what they do. Firstly, because it's not quite right. It's a kink if you can't get off without it, so for him and Abby it's more of a hobby than a kink, but there's not a really good other word for this.—"all of this in general, or collars in specific?"

"I was thinking in general."

"You'll laugh."

"Maybe, if it's funny. But if it's funny, you'll laugh, too."

He smirked a little at that and flashed her a self-depreciating smile. "Okay, so, it's 1998, I'm a junior in college, and this internet thing is really starting to attract some attention. And I was really, really into the X-Files. I had just started writing then, and I was writing X-Files fanfic."

"Good place to start."

"I thought so. Anyway, generally if you write a fandom, you also read it, and that's when I noticed there were people out there who had a much wider definition of sex than I had imagined could exist. Sex-ed as taught by the Admiral was... functional, and that's it. I was reading, and I noticed that I really, really liked some of the things I was finding."

"Really?" She's teasing him a little, but he's enjoying it.

"Yeah, really. Imagine this: I didn't have my own computer yet—"

"There was a time you didn't have a computer?" She sounds genuinely surprised by that.

"Shocking, but yes, that's true. I didn't have my own until senior year. Anyway, I had to use the school's computer labs to get online. So, there were times I'd be in there late at night, reading away, and end up jerking off in the men's room, thinking about Mulder tying up Scully or Scully doing it to him."

She closes her eyes and does seem to imagine that for a moment. "You would have been, what twenty?"

"Yeah."

"Tall, kind of gangly?"

"Yeah. '98 means my hair was long, down to about my jaw, and pretty light. I really was blond back then. I was wearing a lot of flannel and denim those days."

She thinks about that for another minute. "I can just see it. You'd be nervous, and worried someone could come in, but that'd be part of the fun. Way in the back stall, trying to be quiet. Scully in your mind while your hand slides up and down." She closes her eyes, thinks about it, and smiles. "That's so hot."

He pulls her close and kisses her for a long time. "I love you."

"I might just have to find a red wig."

"Ohhh... God, that is so hot!"

"Call you Mulder." He closes his eyes and sighs. "You wear a suit and tie. I think I've got something that'll pass for the sort of clothing Scully wore. I'll handcuff you to a chair, and explain in vivid detail why you need to ignore the search for the truth for at least one night."

"Yes, please!" He kisses her again, thinking his current lack of erection is a testament to how intense the last orgasm was, because in any other circumstance this conversation would make him hard as a rock. "You're the first person I got to do any of this with."

"Really? After that first time, you never seemed nervous. I thought it was just doing it with a new partner, not that it was all new."

"I had figured out that I liked it, but there wasn't a lot of opportunity to do anything about it."

"No steady girlfriend?"

"I had one at MIT, but I think it would have freaked her out, and not in a good way."

"There's a good way to be freaked out?"

"Oh yeah. That little bit of fear when you're doing something scary, but you really know you're safe. Like a roller coaster."

"Okay."

"So, I was with Tony, and I saw you and just about swallowed my tongue. You were so beautiful, and dark, and dangerous looking, and already wearing a collar, and just... I was thinking that if I could get up the nerve to really talk to you, that maybe you'd get to like me, and if maybe you'd get to like me, you might decide sleeping with me was an option, and if that happened, just possibly you wouldn't run screaming away if I suggested tying you up."

"And I didn't run away, did I?"

"No, I think your exact words were something like, 'I've got some ribbons in the top drawer.'"

"Something like that."

"They were black, and silk, and about as long as my arm."

"Yeah. I used them for tying bows around my pig tails."

"I almost lost it, seeing you kneeling in front of me, holding your hands behind your back, waiting for me to tie you."

"Is that your favorite image of me?"

"One of them."

"One of them? How many do you have?"

"A lot. But seeing you do that... It's the closest I've ever been to coming in my pants."

She smiles kindly, but he knows the next words will be teasing. "Control's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I've been enjoying it. Still, you've got to remember, I was barely twenty-four when we met, less than three months out of the academy, and you utterly rocked my world."

"God, I had forgotten how young you were. Now I'm feeling like a cradle robber."

He kisses her, grinning, and she knows the next thing he says will be teasing, as well. "My very favorite cougar."

"Hey, I'm not that old!"

"Just old enough."

She smiles at that. "So... A Scully costume. I've got a black pencil skirt and a plain white blouse, think that'll work..."

* * *

Four days later, he's sitting in front of his computer, wearing a suit, jacket off, tie loose, top button undone, and sleeves rolled up, looking at a report on crop circles, and eating sunflower seeds.

"Mulder, it's after midnight."

He doesn't turn. He wants to turn. He's dying to see how she looks, but Mulder is obsessed, and not with Scully. Mulder stares at the screen. Mulder might indeed dream of sleeping with Scully, but he doesn't act on it, and he certainly doesn't think anything out of the ordinary is going to happen tonight.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead, Scully. Did you know..." and he's blathering on about cow mutilations occurring near crop circles in Oregon.

Abby walks up behind him, leans over his shoulder, turns off the monitor, and then turns his chair to face her. She's wearing a sensible business skirt, low heeled shoes, some sort of knit shirt, and a black jacket, she's even got Scully's little gold cross. But what rivets him, what he can't take his eyes away from is the chic red bob circa season six. Sure, it's a wig, but he's just staring.

"Who said anything about sleeping, Mulder?" She leans over him, pinning his wrist to the arm of the chair.

God, he loves this woman!


	34. For Abby: On Her Knees

For Abby: On Her Knees

"Is that my favorite image of you?"

You ask me.

"One of them..."

"How does it look?"

You don't ask

But I wish you could have seen it from my eyes

You knelt before me

naked

face up, staring into my eyes

hands behind your back, left wrist in right hand.

Did you know, when you do that, the shape of your back is a perfect violin?

I kneel behind you, black ribbons trembling in shaking hands

every fantasy I'd ever dared to dream

about to come real in black silk on your white skin.

I dropped the ribbons.

Did you know that?

Scrambling to pick them up fast, so you didn't notice.

Your skin was so warm,

and your wrists so tiny in my hands

and I want to do this right.

So scared I'll screw it up and you'll leave

or worse

laugh.

I press your hands together

palm to back,

and you lace your fingers like you can read my mind.

I wove the ribbons between your fingers, and over your wrists,

tying everything into a tidy bundle,

and for a long time, I just looked,

finger's trembling, afraid to touch.

Afraid that like any dream, as soon as I tried to touch I'd wake.

I'd never seen anything that looked like that.

White skin crisscrossed into diamonds by black silk.

And then I stood in front of you.

You knelt there and smiled at me,

huge, wide smile.

I step forward, hand on my belt,

and you licked your lips.

And I almost died.

You stared up at me,

Smiling,

Lips wet,

and I realized it was okay.

You were happy to have me here.

This was just a game,

(and I'm good at games)

one you wanted to play with me.

(And God, I fell in love with you so hard right then.)

So I slipped the belt through its buckle,

playing up the slide of the leather through metal

really feeling the way it moved,

seeing in your eyes that you wanted this,

that you wanted _me._

The button was snug moving through the fabric,

fighting me a little,

but the zipper was easy,

and your eyes dropped from mine to see what was under it.

That time I wasn't nervous.

Getting the shirt off was hard,

the pants, no problem.

You grinned and said, "Nice, McGee."

Then leaned forward and licked me.

Just the tip,

like a soft serve ice cream cone.

And then sucked me down, and my knees almost buckled.

My eyes wanted to roll back it felt so good,

and I couldn't let myself close them because you were the most beautiful sight I'd ever seen.

How's the song go?

"I'm a bitch.

I'm a tease.

I'm a goddess on my knees?"

Well, you aren't a bitch,

and sometimes you tease,

but you are a **goddess** on your knees,

(and standing up and lying down, too.)

and if I was an atheist when I walked in that night,

I believed in the divine before I left.


	35. Grandpa Scuito's Hair Pomade

"Did your grandpa ever explain how to get this stuff out of your hair?"

They're in his shower, and rapidly finding out that Grandpa Sciuto's pomade may have been a world beater when it came to proving stable hair that stayed in any position for as long as you wanted it there, but it was proving extremely stubborn when it came to removal. It's laughing at his organic, moisturizing, super gentle for dry hair shampoo.

"Will you hate me if I say lye soap?"

"Oh God. You're not sleeping on my pillow cases tonight."

Abby turned and pouted at him.

Tim kissed the tip of her nose, and then pointed her face away from him, filled his hand with yet another dollop of shampoo, and worked it through her hair.

"I still think it smells better than burnt computer equipment and failure."

"You're absolutely right. That doesn't mean I want it on my sheets."

"Pretend it's lube. Getting that on the sheets never bothers you."

"Lube washes out. If I can't get this out of your hair, it's not going to get out my sheets, either."

"We could get new sheets."

"I like my sheets, they're soft and snuggly and..." That sentence trails off as it occurs to him that she said, "we" not "you."

His fingers stop rubbing the shampoo into her hair. His hands drop to her hips, and she turns toward him.

"We're not just talking about sheets are we?" he asks.

"I don't think so. I got my credit card statement today. You want to guess how much I spent in gas this month, driving from your place to my place to work and back again."

Tim nods. "I've got a pretty good idea." His own statement showed up two days ago, and let's put it this way, he can get some sheets made out of gold for what he's spending on gas.

Tim lives in Silver Springs, Maryland. This is located at the far north end of the Metro DC area. Abby lives in Alexandria, Virginia, at the far south end. And while a drive straight through town isn't horrendously long mileage wise, (about seventeen miles from his place to hers) no one in their right mind tries to drive directly through Washington DC.

So, by the time the somewhat less direct route's been worked into the equation, they live about an hour apart. The Navy Yard is somewhere in between, closer to Abby's than his place. So, say he wakes up at her place and wants to go to his place. He drives an hour to get from her place to his, then half an hour back to the Navy Yard.

Most people who work in DC and live in the metro region cope with this by using the Metro (public transportation) which would be fine, if it didn't close down at midnight, i.e. before they get done with work a lot of nights.

So they drive. A lot. But if they didn't have two homes, they wouldn't have to do quite so much driving.

Tim's thinking that's where she's going with this, and it certainly makes sense to him to go there. His fingers start rubbing the shampoo back into her hair again. "How long do you have on your lease?"

"Until August. You?"

"June. Can you sublet yours? Unless I'm willing to pay a pretty big fine, I can't break my lease."

"How big? I've got money, McGee." Abby runs the lab, and though it's easy to forget with her perky appearance and demeanor, she's equivalent in rank to Ducky, and makes about three times McGee's salary.

"I know. I've got money, too. Just don't like wasting it. Rather buy nice sheets with you than pay three months' rent upfront."

"Okay. I can sublet, if I can find someone to take the lease. But my place is bigger and closer to work."

"True. And you've got a better kitchen." He's noticed that, when he's got someone to actually cook for, he enjoys it. This has resulted in both of them getting a bit plumper lately, but her less so than him.

"There's not really a good spot in my place for your computers."

He nods at that. "Or my typewriter. What are you paying in rent?"

"$1850."

"I'm paying $1675. You know, we could get a really nice two bedroom for less than $2500."

"We could. We could probably find a nice three bedroom for less than we're paying combined right now. Put the money we're not spending on gas and rent into savings for a down payment on a house."

"Do you want a house?" His fingers are stroking up and down the back of her neck as he asks.

"Eventually."

"I've got 400 thousand in the bank." Tim doesn't have a lot of secrets, but that was one of them. He almost never talks about money.

Abby turned to face him, eyes wide. "What? Last I heard your money vanished into a hedge fund, never to come out."

He shrugs a little. "Yep, vanished into thin air. Then I wrote four more books and made some more. They're paying me pretty well for the Deep Six books."

"How well?"

"Do you know how advances and book contracts work?"

"No." She's staring at him intently, and he's forgotten her hair for the moment.

"Okay. They pay me a chunk of cash when they get the first draft of the book, and another chunk when it's finished, and a third chunk when it goes live. That money represents slightly more than what they think my take of the total sales of the book will be over the next three years. So for the first Deep Six they paid me ten grand, and if Deep Six had sold like every other first mystery, ten thousand copies or so, they would have basically gotten complete ownership of the book at the end of those three years. But Deep Six earned out, which means it sold more copies than they paid me for, so every quarter they have to send me my percentage of the sales. So, for the sequel they offered me more money. Deep Six: Black Rock earned out, too. So once again, each quarter I get another check. But they don't want to pay me quarterly. They want to make sure that advance is so big that at the end of the three years they own the book and can do what they want with it. So the advance for Foreign and Domestic was three hundred thousand dollars, which they're pretty sure won't earn out, and so am I. Fairy Fire and Nymph Nights didn't earn out, so I made about fifteen grand on them. And, so, yeah, I've got some money."

She's shaking her head. "Yeah, some. Wow."

"So, anyway, if you wanted to get a house... I mean... I've got down payment money."

"You've got buy it outright money!"

He shrugs a little at that as well. "I'm contracted for two more Deep Six books after this one."

"How much will that work out to?"

"Five books in total. Call it a million one all said and done, with a steady sixish thousand dollars a quarter from the two that earned out. And there's an option for three more after the current five, that'll run at 750K if I take it."

"Remind me not to distract you from your writing."

He smiles. "So, you're okay with that?"

"What, I put up with you poor, but now I know you've got money, so you've got to go?"

"Something like that. Ten minutes ago I was a wage slave, and now I'm not."

"I can deal with you having money, McGee. Kind of like it actually. Though, really, freaking out over less than six thousand to get out of this place?"

"Okay, yeah, it's silly, but... I watched my net worth go from over 150 thousand to the two thousand dollars I had in my checking account in less than a week six years ago. So, I'm a little twitchy about my cash."

"I can understand that."

She's standing there, facing him, water beading off her hair like a duck's back, and Tim rests his arms on her shoulders. "So, do you want to get a house? Or find an apartment for us?"

"How about an apartment for now, and we'll get the house when we get serious about making some McSciutos."

He's grinning. "That sounds really good."

She looks up, kisses him soundly, and then sprints out of the shower, water droplets flying behind her. For a second he stands there looking confused, and then she's back with a bottle of dish soap.

"Dawn! They use it to get oil off the birds in an oil spill, so it should get the pomade out."

She hands him the bottle, and he squirts some into his hand. A few minutes of sudsing seem to be making a difference. Her hair is still greasy, but much less so.

"So, it looks like your hair can be saved, and you will be granted permission to sleep on my pillowcases. Given that, do you still want to get some new sheets with me?"

"I like your sheets, McGee."

* * *

A/N: For those of you who are curious, McGee is right, that's how book advances usually work. He's leaving out the part where the author is expected to pay for his own publicity out of that money. (And the fact that advances are getting pretty thin on the ground these days.)


	36. Valentine's Day

Abby likes holidays. And Abby likes presents. So for the last nine years Tim has gotten her some sort of small, cute, often funny valentine. Like a little skeleton in a top hat with a tiny bouquet of flowers, or a Caff-Pow in the special Valentine's Edition pink cup. Stuff like that. Nothing big. Nothing expensive. Nothing romantic. Just something cute and small that she'd like.

And once again Valentine's is looming near, and he's thinking this is not the year for cute or small.

Vast, grand romantic gestures seem like the idea for this year.

He knows, ideally what he'd like to get.

He's just not finding it, or anything like it, at all.

"Palmer, what do you think of this one?"

He's standing next to Jimmy in autopsy, supposedly getting a report to bring back up to Gibbs. Jimmy looks at the image on his phone and says, yet again. "Tim, you know just as well as I do, there's not a diamond ring on earth that's right for Abby."

"Yeah." He shuts down the image of a princess cut diamond in platinum and tucks the phone back into his jacket.

"I've got six days and nothing."

"Then don't do it for Valentine's. Do something that is right for her, and keep looking for the ring in the meantime. Nothing says romance like proposing under the fireworks at Fourth of July."

"God, I hope it doesn't take that long to find the right ring."

"Tim, don't kid yourself, the right ring for her is something you're going to have to get made. There's not going to be anything on a shelf."

Tim sighs. "I think she'd like something vintage."

"You're going to be vintage by the time you find the right ring for her. Get one made."

Tim picks up the report and fires off a sardonic salute to Jimmy. Time to get back to work.

* * *

Something right. Something her. Something grand and expansive...

Something...

She's getting dressed, and he's lying in bed, staring at her back as he thinks this.

Oh... Um... Yeah... She might go for that.

He hops up and goes hunting for paper, a pen, and a ruler. Tim can't draw. He's terrible at it. But he can draft. He's handy with math, very good with spatial relationships, and he can imagine things in 3d space easily. And he likes knots. He likes knots a lot. And Abby likes knots, especially knots he's tying on her.

He returns to bed, sitting cross-legged, stack of printer paper in front of him.

"What are you doing?" She's staring at him as he starts plotting out two straight lines.

"Super-secret romance stuff." He looks up and grins. "Off to work with you."

Her eyes narrow and she stares at the paper. Just two long straight lines right now, but he's starting to add hashmarks at each quarter inch.

"Are you designing something?"

"Maybe." He grins again, putting down the pen. "Shoo..." He waves toward the door. "It doesn't get designed if you stand there hovering over me."

"Mysterious."

"Oh yeah." He winks, stands up, kisses her, and then pushes her out of his bedroom. "Bye!"

It takes him close to three hours to get it laid out, which means he was facing yet another day of driving like a maniac to get to work just fairly late instead of wildly late. But to work he got, three minutes before he had to vanish into the conference room to be deposed for a case.

The deposition went long, way long, he had to go over how he had known about Khan's MIT background several times, apparently, 'I was at the same school studying forensic computing while he was hacking the damn place" wasn't enough. Something about the defense lawyer might want to try and pin the hacking on him or something to attack his credibility.

Eye roll. Sigh. It'd be nice if someone in legal knew more about computers than how to send email.

So it was well after two when he got out, and Tony sidled on over to his desk.

"Another good morning?"

"Yes, but not the kind you're thinking of. I finally figured out a Valentine's day present for Abby."

"Ahhh... There's something I don't miss about having a girlfriend. The yearly hunt for a trinket to show affection."

"We're a bit past the trinket phase."

"That's even worse. Now you've got to get something that means something. And if you don't get it right, she pouts at you. I hate Valentine's day."

"Yeah. So..." He stares at Tony and debates. It's Monday. Valentine's is Thursday. Can Tony keep hold of the secret? Will the idea of it freak him out again? Will showing him what it is help to rebridge the trust between them?

"Just show him, McGee." He hears Gibbs say. Then Gibbs looks at Tony and says, "And if you wreck the surprise, I'll kill you myself."

Gibbs walks over, leans against his desk, and says, "Come on, she's likely to sense this and come up here any second, so show us."

"Oh, yeah."

He takes out the sketch and unfolds it. Gibbs squints at it, looking puzzled, it's not what he was expecting. Tony stares, too.

"You're getting her lines?" Tony says.

Tim folds it back up and tucks it into his pocket. Gibbs' 'she'll sense it and show up' comment has enough truth to it to make him nervous.

"No. It's a Celtic knot tattoo that I designed for her myself. And, when someone who can draw gets a hold of it, it'll be a lot more swoopy."

"Swoopy?" Tony asks.

"It'll look like ribbons woven in and on each other."

"Oh."

Tim points to just below his right deltoid. "It'll go here, on both of us."

Tony thinks about this, and he doesn't seem too freaked out. "So you're getting her matching tattoos for Valentine's day?"

"Yeah. That I designed for her myself."

Tony is nodding, looking like he doesn't really know what to think about that. Gibbs is still staring at him, and Tim thinks he knows what that look means.

"I couldn't find exactly what I was looking for, so I did this instead. I'm still looking though, for the first thing."

Gibbs nods. "She'll love it."

"That's the idea."

* * *

Abby is, by general accord, the best informed member of Team NCIS. People tell her things. Lots of things. And she has a secret weapon. Gibbs tells her things, if she asks, and he sees everything.

So when Thursday morning had rolled around, and she still didn't know what her Valentine's present was from Tim, she was feeling, well, nervous. Since she has no idea what he's getting her, she's not sure if her own gift, a collection of bootlegged improvisational jazz recordings from his five favorite musicians, live shows that were never supposed to be recorded, so Tim's never heard them before, is appropriate. She knows he'll love them, but with the way the guys keep smirking at her, or smiling, or just sort of glowing in her direction, she's not sure if it's big enough.

She was able to get from Tony that Gibbs had ordered a personal fatwa of death on anyone who spilled the beans, which explained her inability to get a hold of any details, but did not get her any closer to what the mystery object might be.

Tim was drawing it... Maybe... Could be some sort of strange poem? She knows back in his college days he did experimental writing where the shape of the poem was as important as the words. So...

But would that be enough to cause Gibbs to order silence? And bigger question, is that the kind of thing Tim would show anyone?

She walked into her office, turned on her computer, and saw a card on the keyboard. Her name in Tim's handwriting was on the envelope. He had to get one of the others to help with this, because they came into work together this morning, and he hasn't had time to get this down here.

Gibbs probably helped. He'd trust Gibbs with whatever was in that envelope and to make sure it got where it had to go. She sniffs the envelope, and there's the faint smell of Old Spice that anything that spends time in Gibbs jacket pocket acquires.

Sooo, Gibbs and Tim working together.

She slits open the envelope and takes out a thick piece of paper, thinking it's another poem. A business card falls out as she removes it, which makes her think twice about the poem idea. She lets it lie, wanting to see what's on the paper first. Unfolding it she finds a sketch of herself. It's a bust, her right arm across her chest, head turned away in quarter profile. Behind her is Tim, holding her, right arm cradled under hers, face mostly hidden behind hers. She's got on some sort of little tank top, but he's shirtless. Both right arms are prominent, the focus of the sketch, and it takes her a second to see what's different about the sketch.

Then her fingers fall to the cuff tattoos. It's a four strand knot, two black strands, two red. She can see at a glance this is something Tim would tie. He'd take an hour to weave something that all the way up her arm or leg and then take pictures.

Under the picture was one word in his handwriting: Yes?

She flipped over the card that fell out of the envelope. It was an appointment with a tattoo artist she knew for Saturday morning.

* * *

Tim is in the car with Gibbs, heading toward a dead sailor, when he gets a text. He looks at it, smiles, types quickly, and puts his phone back in his pocket.

Gibbs glances away from traffic toward him.

"She liked it. That was yes in all caps with about twenty exclamation points next to it."

Gibbs nods.

"You were expecting me to pull out a ring, right?"

Gibbs nods at that, too.

"Talking to Jimmy?"

This time the looks says, _No. Why? Should I have been?_

"I am looking for one, but I'm not buying until I can find one that needs to live on her finger. It can't just be some sort of generic diamond. It's got to be Abby's ring. If that takes a while, it takes a while."

Gibbs nods at that, too. Thinking about how much easier this was when he did it the first time. Go out, find the biggest rock you could afford, put it on the girl, and six months later, I Do. 'Course the pressure to move fast is probably somewhat less intense if you're already having sex and practically living together.

Tim doesn't have that glazed and frustrated look he suspects he had most of the time he was courting Shannon.

"You moving to her place, or is she moving to yours?"

"We're getting a new one all-together."

He nods at that, too.

"Next time you go ring shopping, take Ziva. She'd like it, and she can keep a secret."

"Am I taking her because she'll be useful to me, or because it'll get her thinking about possible long term life changes?"

Gibbs smiles, downshifts, and parks. "We're here."

* * *

"So, what'd she get you?" Tony is asking as they walk back into the bullpen.

"I don't know, yet." He saw a pink conversation heart on the escape key on his keyboard. Next to it was a package of Nutterbutters, with a bow and some sort of small card attached.

He sat down at his desk. The conversation heart said, 'I luv you.' He smiled a little at that and opened the card.

8:30 in the lab.

-Abby

(No snooping!)

"Nutterbutters?" Tony's looking at the cookies, astounded. "I mean, I know you like them, but... really? You design her a tattoo, and she gets you cookies?"

"Just part one." He held up the card.

"That looks promising."

"Yeah."

Gibbs walks to his desk, scowling at them. "And it's also not going to happen if you two don't find me something useful."

"On it, Boss."

* * *

"What do you have for me, Abbs?"

"Besides this?" She walked up and hugged him. "Thanks for delivering Tim's card."

Gibbs nods. "The case?"

"The single least talented killer, ever? I've got ballistics. I've got the gun. I've got fingerprints. I've got blood. I've got DNA. I've got gunshot residue. Either this guy is dumber than cement, or you've got someone who's been framed into oblivion."

Gibbs sighs. "Dumber than cement. Found his wife fooling around, killed her and the guy with her, and then ran." He looks at her secondary computer, seeing a few little black hearts on the keyboard, which he didn't think were there before, but no Tim. "Isn't this usually when McGee tells me he's got a trace on the guy's phone?"

"Probably. I'm making him work upstairs."

"Do I want to know what's going to happen down here?"

"I doubt it, but if you want to know, I'll tell you."

Gibbs sighs and shakes his head, turning to go back upstairs.

* * *

"So how is it, I try to get married, and NCIS gets blown up, terrorists come crawling out of the woodwork, and everything falls to pieces, meanwhile, for your Valentines Day treat, you get a case that's wrapped up by 6:00?" Palmer asks Tim as he's heading out.

"I don't know. Cupid likes me? Besides, you're out of here early tonight, too. Breena'll like that."

"Yes, she will. Though with my luck, the car'll blow up on the way home or something."

"You'll be fine. Go home and have some fun."

"I intend to. 'Night, Tony, Ziva."

"How about you two, any plans tonight?" Tim asks.

Ziva looks at him and raises one eyebrow. "Do you think we'd have plans with each other for Valentine's Day?"

"I was more thinking in general, but now that you've brought it up..." Tim smiles at them.

Tony glares at him. Ziva smiles. "I am going home, having some dinner, and getting a long hot bath with a good book."

"Sounds good. Tony?"

He's looking at Ziva, and Tim guesses he's imagining what a long hot bath with a book looks like. Then he jerks a little, and says, "No idea. I'll figure it out when I get home."

"Well, if neither of you have plans, I've got two hours to kill, so want to go grab a drink or something with me?"

"Sure."

"Okay."

* * *

8:27 and he's standing outside the door to Abby's lab.

That's the first hint that something interesting is up. The door is shut. The door is never shut when Abby's in there. She only closes that door when she leaves at the end of the day.

He's not sure if he should knock or just go in, and decides that either way, he can wait three minutes for it to actually be 8:30.

Long damn three minutes.

He can't hear anything going on in there. No music. And he can't see any light coming from the underside of the door, though he's not sure if he would, the hallway is pretty bright and he doesn't remember if the lab has one of those little sweeper things on the bottom of the door to make sure nothing gets out.

At exactly 8:30 the door opens. He knows it's 8:30:00 because he's looking at his watch. He looks up at her and smiles, realizing she had to be standing on the other side of the door, watching the clock.

He hasn't seen her since this morning. Hasn't texted since she sent him that extremely excited message saying YES! to the tattoo. And it's not like they never go a day without seeing each other, but it's rare.

She takes his hands and pulls him into the lab as he's saying, "Hi."

She steps behind him and locks the door, then looks up at him, very pleased with herself, very amused, and smiles.

He kisses her hello and looks around. The lab looks, well, exactly like it did when he was in there yesterday.

Almost. She's got paper taped up over the windows between the lab proper and her office.

"What's in there?"

"Your surprise."

"Am I gonna like it?"

"I certainly hope so." She tugged him gently toward her office, clicking the button that opened the door.

Candles, that's the first thing he noticed. Lots and lots of candles. Besides the floor and her computer every horizontal surface in her office had at least one of them.

Then the music hit him. He knew it, Instrumental No. 7, but it didn't quite sound the way he expected it to.

"Is this Henneger?"

"Yeah. Take off your shoes. Sit down." She pointed to the soft and fuzzy nest she had made on the floor. Four white sheepskin rugs were overlapping into a large circle, and a few plush satiny looking pillows in rich, violet-tinged red sat around the edges. There was a small table in the middle, maybe one and half feet by one and a half feet, and about a foot tall. On it he could see a selection of sushi and a bottle of sake. And next to the black lacquered chop sticks was an MP3 player.

He slipped off his shoes, and then his socks as well, soft fluffy rug would feel good on his feet. He pointed to the side with the MP3 player and she nodded. Then he sat.

She sat across from him. "Pick it up; look at what's on it."

It took him a minute to figure out what he was scrolling through. At first look it was a fairly standard catalogue of some of his favorite musicians doing their most famous songs, then as he got deeper into it, and noticed some very non-standard songs, and as the recording currently playing faded into applause, he realized he was looking at some extremely rare recordings of live shows.

His jaw dropped when the next song started. That was Eric Clapton's voice. He'd heard about it. Everyone who loved Henneger had heard about it. One night in Chicago back in '93, Clapton had been in the audience, but somehow he ended up on stage with Henneger, and the two of them had come up with a thirteen minute long version of Instrumental No. 13, with Clapton coming up with lyrics on the fly. Clapton played guitar. Henneger played sax. Both of them moving back and forth with the main theme, taking it places no one ever thought it could or would go. It wasn't supposed to have been recorded, but he was sitting in the lab, listening to it.

"How did you get this?"

"Friend of a friend is a really hardcore Jazz musician, and he was willing to let me make copies of some of the things he played backup on and some of the shows he had been to."

He wants to babble about how happy this is making him, and he wants to be silent and absorb it. Abby sees his look, and how he's torn. She grins, kisses him, and moves the table over.

"Lay down, listen to with me. We'll eat later."

He kisses her back, hand cupping her cheek, grinning widely, eyes warm and happy, and then lays back, closes his eyes, and lets the music wash over him.

She lays down next to him, holding his hand.

* * *

He had forgotten how much getting a tattoo hurt. It's not the end of the world or anything, but it certainly isn't comfortable, either. And this one is a lot bigger than the last one.

His first one had taken about half an hour to do. This one'll take four.

He'd enjoyed walking in with Abby. She, of course, looks like she belongs in a tattoo studio. He looks a little out of place. The girl working the counter, who hadn't been there when he went in to see about getting his idea made into a tat, stared at them in open wonder.

She got Abby. She didn't get him with Abby.

And being the guy who got Abby, even if he is kind of mild-mannered looking, wearing a pair of nice jeans, a casual button down, blazer over it, and loafers, while she's out in a short skirt, one of his button downs rolled up at the sleeves and top two buttons undone (one thing you don't want is a tight t-shirt rubbing against a new tat) over a tank top, and a pair of knee high boots, tickles him to no end.

He opened the door for her, arm around her waist, very clearly signaling MINE to anyone who might want to look. And the girl looked, and did a double take.

And Tim smirked.

Turns out Abby knew Sam, the artist. They chatted while Sam got Tim ready. Business was slow so the girl came back to see what they were getting done.

She looked at the knot, looked at Abby and said, "That's yours? Sam told me we had a custom piece coming in. It's beautiful."

Abby smiled. "It's mine in that I get to wear it. He's the one who designed it."

The girl looked at Tim, and he gave her a wide and happy smile, seeing her actually see past his clothing for the first time. He's got his shirt off, and Sam is smoothing the transfer onto his arm. She moves to his left side and says, "That's Python, right?"

"Yeah, that's my master's dissertation."

"Kind of old school."

"It was 2001." Less than a year after Python 2.0 had come out, and barely seconds behind the absolute bleeding edge of programming tech when he did it.

"Oh. Cool."

"Thanks. I just figured out the over under and where the strands went for this one. Sam's the one who made them art." Turned them into whorled swirls of ribbons. Sam was the one who spaced them out further, took advantage of the negative space, and ended up with a design that made the black strands look almost carved out of the arm, while the red ones wrapped around and through.

Sam nods, and begins to load up the black ink. He actually puts Tim in mind of Gibbs. Not a lot to say. Warms up significantly with Abby around. His portfolio is his main selling tool, though he took the time to really get what Tim wanted and sketch it out, and then draw the second sketch for Abby.

And then Tim sort of zoned out for the next four hours. A lot, maybe not most, but a decent percentage of people with tats like pain, they get off on it, or get off on getting through it. Abby gets off on getting through it. But he's not one of them. He wonders about that sometimes, because he knows that a lot of the things he enjoys do often go along with getting off on pain.

The knots he likes... In Japan they are tied in hemp, often on bare skin, and they leave abrasions and sometimes welts. Dom/sub stuff doesn't usually just end with 'do what I tell you to.' And those stories he told Abby about, he ended up exiting out of a lot of them when they took a turn for knives or burns, whips and flails.

Maybe it's like bungee jumping (which no, he doesn't even like to think too hard about, let alone do) he wants the feel of falling but not the splat at the end.

He looks at Abby, who knows he's checked out and is talking with the counter girl and Sam, and pulls his mind away from what feels like an avenging mini-sewing machine having its way with his arm.

He goes into plotting mode and spends the next four hours working out the main ideas for Tibbs' next adventure.

* * *

Watching Abby get hers is significantly more interesting to him than getting his own.

For the first minute she's clutching his hand going, "Ow ow owowowowowowowowowowowow owwwww. Damn, McGee! I always forget this part."

"Yeah, me too." It really is kind of a shock how much your memory dulls things like that. And he's got a suspicion that his mind has also dulled down how much they itch when they heal as well.

"Look at me."

So he does, and she holds his eyes with hers. He sees her take a deep breath, let it out slow, and her eyes slide shut. Two more deep breaths, and he feels her hand relax in his. Her shoulders go soft, and her head settles back.

"Okay, found it."

"Found what?"

"The spot in my mind where it can just all flow around me."

"So, it doesn't hurt?"

"It does, but it doesn't matter. It's just there. I'm here with you. I'm safe. Nothing bad is happening to me. So the pain doesn't matter."

And he understands why she gets so freaked out sometimes, when she can't find safe, everything stops flowing, it stops working properly and leaves her stuck in a river of too much so she curls into a little ball, trying to get away from it.

He holds her hand, watching Sam mark her with a knot he designed, something she'll wear on her skin until the day she dies and feels the sore burn of that exact same mark on his own skin.

A matched pair, even if, on the outside, they don't look it.

He kisses her cheek. "Happy Valentine's Day."


	37. The Hinky Thing

A/N: Okay, so this one mentions "the hinky thing" Tim and Abby got up to the first time they dated. It's a pretty soft, sweet romance-y chapter, but there is a discussion of necrophilia role playing. So, if that's something you find squeamish, you might want to skip the first half of this one.

* * *

"You know, I kind of miss the coffin," Tim said as they got ready for bed.

"You miss the coffin?" Abby didn't look like she ever expected him to say that.

"Well, I miss what we did in the coffin. The... ummm... hinky thing we did in the coffin." Tim blushes a little at that. They did the hinky thing once, and then never talked about it, or did it, again.

So, the hinky thing... Okay, now, if you were to ask him, Tim would totally blame the hinky thing on the booze. It was maybe two months after they started dating the first time, and it was also right after one of Tim's more intimidating first cases. He was pretty convinced that Gibbs was going to kill him, or worse, get him fired. So anyway, after work, looking to burn off some serious nervous tension, he got some sushi and sake, and went back to her place.

The thing about sake is that it tastes a lot milder than it actually is. By the time your brain has realized you've ingested something with some real alcohol in it, you're pretty much soused.

And kicking a three-quarters full bottle of Riesling after the Sake ran out didn't help.

Yeah, so, he was pretty drunk. At least by Tim standards. And Abby has an even lower alcohol tolerance than he does, so she was completely gone.

Anyway, hard day at work, lots of alcohol, and sex was in the offing. They had gotten to the coffin (Box sofa she had called it, and he went along with it, but come on, he's not blind, and sure, the first time the lights were off, but he woke up in it the next morning, so the gig was kind of up at that point. But if she wanted to call it a box sofa, well, he wanted to have sex, so a box sofa it was.) and she said, "Do you want to play a game?"

Tim was always willing to play Abby's games, so he said yes.

"Okay, here, put on your jacket, get in, and stay really still."

That sounded like an odd request to Tim, but, sure, he did it. He lay in the coffin, dressed in a suit, because back then he still wore suits to work, and stayed still. Abby followed him in, also fully dressed, and he remembers this pretty clearly, she was wearing a plaid skirt, thigh high socks, no shoes, a black t-shirt with a skull on it, and a choker, but not one of the spikey ones.

It wasn't until she folded his hands over his chest that he figured out what was going on. Honestly, he was a little freaked out by it. But she unzipped him, took him in her mouth, and he decided he could deal with a little freaked out if it meant he was going to get a blow job.

It was good. It was insanely good. Maybe because he was a little freaked out. Maybe because he was still dealing with the emotions from the case. Maybe because it was only the third he'd ever had in his life. Anyway, he was insanely turned on when she put the condom on him, leaned up, pulled her panties to the side and slid down on him.

He kept his eyes open, which was probably out of character, but there was no way he wasn't going to watch her do him.

Now, there's pretty much one thing all guys want to do when they have sex, and that's move. It's not necessarily all about deeper, harder, faster, but still, thrusting, increasing the friction, that's the goal. Sure spinning things out is interesting and makes for a more intense climax, but spinning things out, and entirely surrendering to your partner are different things.

He got into it as a submission game. The struggle of doing exactly what your partner wants and trusting in her to make it worth his while.

And it was so worth his while. Not moving at all took a tremendous amount of concentration. He'd continually keep tensing up, getting closer and closer, feeling himself all but begging her to move faster or harder, and then he'd have to force himself to relax again.

Abby kept a steady, slow pace. The sort of stroke that gets her wet and ready, but can't get either of them off.

Each minute passed by, his tension increasing with each thrust, constantly forcing his muscles to relax again and again. She flipped the skirt up, so he could watch her finger herself. And, God, that was so hot, so impossibly hot. And it was the first time he'd ever seen a girl do that, which made it more intense. She kept moving slowly, up-down, back-forth, her body growing tighter on his as she got closer and closer.

It was the tightness that did it, that eased him over the edge. It was like falling slowly into an orgasm, or being eaten alive by one. It crept over his whole body, like, because he couldn't move, that every single muscle in his body decided to get in on the release.

And it was, at that time, the single most intense orgasm of his life.

And after it happened, they cleaned up, and never talked about it again.

Abby sits next to Tim on the bed. "The hinky thing? Which hinky thing?"

"_The _hinky thing."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"You want to do that again?"

"If you do. I mean, maybe not exactly the same way. I'd love it if you were naked and I could see all of you, but yeah, I really liked it."

"It didn't freak you out? 'Cause you never said anything about it again."

He gives her a telling look. "You didn't, either. I was a little freaked out at first, but... when it happened that was the best orgasm of my life, so I got over being freaked out."

Abby laughs at that. "You are such a guy."

Tim shrugs. "Not much I can do about that. So... ummmm... do you want to do that again?"

She smiles, stands up, and begins to brush her hair. "You're just feeling lazy today and want me to do all the work."

"Lazy? Do you have any idea how hard it is to not move at all?"

"I could find out." She's smiling again, and now it's his turn to think.

"That could be interesting." He'll admit that's not pressing any special buttons for him, but if she likes it, he's game.

He pats the bed next to him, and she lays down. He's nuzzling against her neck, enjoying the way she smells, and thinks about how if this isn't fun, if it does turn out that her playing dead is freaky, he can just tell her that, and they'll do something else.

He leans up on his arm, looking at her face. Her eyes are closed, and she's got a little smile on her lips.

"Abigail." That's his safe word. If he ever calls her that, play stops and they're out of the game. Most of the time something like that gets used to indicate too much pain or freaking out. But right now he wants to indicate something else. Because any game like this, anytime when they're actively playing, anything he says is in character, which means he's free to say anything, everything he wants. It's fun, but not real, and he wants this to be real.

She opens her eyes and looks at him.

"McGee?" She's worried, he's almost never used his safeword. The last time it happened she was accidently grinding one of his toes into a bloody pulp under her boot and couldn't feel it through the platform heels.

He smiles, letting her know nothing bad is happening. "Just, I love you, so much. I love that this is fun. That it's not some sort of if-it-isn't-perfect-egos-get-shattered-and-we-walk-around-on-eggshells-pretending-we're-okay-so-we-don't-hurt-each-other sort of thing." He kisses her sweetly.

She kisses back, her fingers trailing down his arm, and he jerks back.

"Case in point. Ouch!" He shakes his right arm, hoping that'll ease the itching burn her fingers on his new tattoo just started.

"Sorry. It's easy to forget it's there." The tats are healing up nicely, but they're only four days old, so healing up is not nearly the same thing as healed.

He straddles her, taking both of her hands in his, stretches her arms up, over her head, and pins them to the bed. Then gently, slowly, keeping up eye contact, leans down, and blows on her new tattoo.

Abby squirms and shrieks. "Tim! You son of a bitch! That itches."

He lets her hands free and kneels back on his feet, laughing. She sits up, her legs still between his, smiling, very lightly rubbing the tat, trying to ease the itch.

"Distraction is good for itching." He leans in, kissing her. She kisses back, squirming in a much more encouraging sort of way.

"I like it when you do that," she says as she breaks the kiss.

"Which part?"

"Pin my hands like that."

"Why?" He knows why. It's part of any submission game they play where he's the dominant one, but he still loves hearing her say it.

"Because it makes me feel small, and safe, and completely in your hands. Because it's so male, and... I don't know... I just like that. Because of how your arms, and back, and thighs look when you do that. These," this time her one hand trails down his left arm, and while the other skips over the new tattoo on his right, "bunch up and look very strong, and my wrists both fit in one of your hands. And when you do it, a lot of your weight is on your legs or back, so they look incredible, too. When my legs are on the outside," because he's the one straddling her right now, "I like to hitch them up and just feel that strength and hardness against my inner thighs."

It's possible McGee made a small growling sound at that point, but he'd likely deny it if asked. It's also probably worth mentioning that at this point in their pre-bedtime routine he's wearing his boxers, and she's in a chemise and boyshorts panties.

What is certain is that within about two tents of a second Abby was flat on her back again, with her hands pinned above her head and McGee kissing the absolute daylights out of her.

He's kissing her, supporting his weight on his legs and right arm, realizing that they're both awfully dressed right now for where he'd like this to be going, and there's not a good way to keep holding her hands down and get them undressed.

It's time to get creative.

The fact is, Abby's less than three inches shorter than he is, so if he's holding her hands at full extension, he's not got a lot length to maneuver with, at least, that's true if they've gotten to the point where they're actually having sex. But right now he's straddling her, and they're both still dressed, so he can move up her body and keep her hands in his.

He does, nuzzling and kissing her arms, being careful to avoid the new tat. He switches holding her hands to his right hand, gently nibbling her fingers, and furiously searches his bedside table with his left.

Because, as per rule number nine, he always has a knife, though, granted when he's in bed, the knife in question is in his nightstand. His hand closes around it. It's just a simple folding knife. Short blade, about two and a half inches long, and to date the only thing he's ever used this one for is cutting off those obnoxious little plastic tie things that keep the tags on clothing.

Still, it's sharp, and he's never done anything like this, but he thinks she'll go for it.

And if not, they'll play a new game.

He shifts again, still pinning her hands, most of his body lying next to hers. He drops the knife to the pillow above and behind her head, where she can't see it.

"You know I love those panties, right?" he asks, using his free hand to stroke over them, white boyshorts, little black skulls wearing pink hair bows printed on the cotton, and tiny black ribbons on the hips. He traces the crest of her hipbones, and warms her pussy with his palm, pressing gently against her mound with the heel of his hand.

She hummed something that could have been a yes and arched into his touch.

"But right now," he tugs at them, demonstrating the fact that he doesn't have enough reach to get them much past her hips unless he lets go of her hands, "they're in the way."

He picks up the knife and holds it where she can see it. Abby looks intrigued.

"Trust me?"

She grins, anticipating where this is going. "Absolutely."

He flicks the knife open, and very carefully slips the blade, sharp side facing away from her skin, under the side seam of the shorts, pulling upwards quickly and slitting the one side of the panties, and then doing it again on the other. He closes the knife and tosses it away from the bed, wanting no chance of either of them accidently cutting themselves, and then yanks the panties off.

"That's better. Those little shorts might be hot, but your naked skin is so much better."

His free hand settles back onto her mound and begins to tease, fingers slipping on hot, wet skin. He presses against her side, mouth on her breast, kissing and nipping gently around her nipple through her chemise while his fingers play.

She's rippling under him, hips undulating in a beautiful wave arc pattern. He's rubbing against her hip, well aware of the fact that if you're going to have sex without taking off your underwear, boxers with a fly is the best possible option. He's already sticking out of the fly, hot, hard flesh rubbing against her suede silk skin on one side and the somewhat nubby flannel cotton of his undies on the other.

He knows that nine out of ten times, he can't get Abby off with sex alone. Just penetration won't do it. And he also knows that stretched out like this he just doesn't have the manual dexterity to get her off while fucking. But the other thing that he knows is that if he times this right, he can get her almost off the edge, slip into her, and then grind with his pelvis while he goes full out and get both of them off in a matter of a minute or two.

He can feel her getting close. Her body is tight and wet and she's making a soft, high-pitched breathy sound that indicated oncoming orgasm.

He sucks on the nipple in his mouth, hard, knowing she feels what he does to her nipples in her clit as well and moves his hand to her side, to take his weight while he shifts from her side to between her legs.

He uses his hand for a little help on the angle and then thrust in, hard, setting a breakneck pace. Her legs wrap around his hips, and she arching against him, a steady stream "God, Tim, yes, like that, fuck! Don't stop! FUCK!" ringing in his ears.

He finds her nipple with his free hand, rolling it between his fingers, pulling gently on it, working it like a less sensitive clit, while he kisses her feverishly.

All he can focus on is how she feels on him. Hot skin, wet sliding flesh, tight, soft grip, and then she starts to ripple and pulse around him and he's gone, orgasm ripping through him.

Several minutes later, when they were both breathing normally again, and he had let go of her arms, but not pulled away yet, Abby said, "I can't believe you cut them off me."

"Too much?"

"No, that was amazing." Her fingers trace over his arm, back, and thigh. She yawns, sniffing his skin, kissing his neck lightly. "Strong, very male, yes, I liked that a lot."

He smiles, kisses her forehead. "Good."

And, so they didn't end up playing the game he thought they would. And, yeah, no one was motionless, but they certainly had a good time. He thinks a few days later when his mind wanders back to this that that's why they work so well. It doesn't matter what the game is, they're both happy to play it with each other.


	38. Today It Wasn't Me

"Hey Breena."

"Hi Abby, what's up?"

"Could you come to the lab?"

"Sure. Why do you need me at the lab?"

"It's a surprise."

"Okay, I'll be there in half an hour."

Abby felt sick to her stomach as she hung up. But she wanted Breena driving happy, relaxed, alert, and paying attention to the traffic, not in a blind panic worrying about Jimmy.

Two minutes ago, the Team had headed out to go get Jimmy and Ducky, and she knew that if Jimmy did come back, Breena would want to see him right that second and he would want to see her. And if he didn't, she'd want someone to hold her and cry with her, and for that matter, so would Abby.

There was no way she was going to let Breena sit at home, wondering where Jimmy was, waiting for the knock on the door... Well, no, Breena wouldn't be worrying about that knock. Jimmy's a medical examiner, not a cop. But ME or not, that knock could be coming.

But it wouldn't, not like that at least, because Abby was going to make sure Breena was here, with her, with family, not having to face the wait alone.

* * *

Breena got there half an hour later, and Abby can tell by the way she's dressed, cute top, flirty skirt, heels, that she's thinking this is some sort of anniversary surprise Jimmy's come up with.

And she can see, just as clearly, that look of pleased curiosity fall apart as she lays eyes on Abby and sees the fear.

She wraps her arms around Breena and says, as carefully as she can, because she doesn't want to start crying, "Jimmy went missing a few hours ago. Gibbs and Tim and Tony and Ziva found him half an hour ago, and they're out getting him back."

She feels Breena stiffen, feels the shivers start, but she doesn't cry, she just asks, "Missing how?"

"Someone kidnapped him and Ducky."

Breena looked up at the ceiling, took a very deep breath, let it out slowly, and began to pray. And that didn't sound like a bad idea to Abby, so she joined in.

Two and a half of the longest hours in the history of time passed until her cell buzzed. Four words, from Tim, and they felt better than almost anything he'd ever told her.

_Got them. Everyone's fine._ She showed that to Breena who began to sob as soon as she saw them.

* * *

They headed up to the Bullpen to wait for them to come home. And it was another very slow two hours before the elevator pinged, and Breena ran to it, waiting right in front of the doors. Before they had opened all the way, she rushed into Jimmy's arms, clinging to him, and he was holding onto her for dear life, face pressed against her shoulder, babbling about missing their anniversary, and finally she pulled his face up, and kissed him soundly. Then stopped, looked at him for a long time, kissed him again and said, "It doesn't matter. You're alive." Everyone else filed out of the elevator, Gibbs providing an arm for Ducky to lean on, and the doors shut, giving them some privacy.

* * *

No one said anything when Tim walked straight up to her, wrapped his arms around her, while she rested her face against his chest, her hands rubbing his arms, and waist, the sort of touch that seemed to be testing, making sure he was really there.

They usually aren't any more affectionate at work than they were before they started dating. Mostly because it's work. But today no one looked, and no one snickered, when she kissed him hard and frantic, and then took his hand and led him to the stairs toward the parking lot less than a minute after they got back.

* * *

They didn't talk, because the best he could say to her was, "Today, it wasn't me," and that's not good enough for either of them.

If sex is a language, and she's fairly sure it is, what happened when they got home, barely in the door, was mostly an expression of fear, and reminding yourself that another day has passed without the worst happening.

They aren't strangers to the up against the wall quickie. Likewise, fast and hard isn't something new either. But today's terrified edge was new. She hadn't realized how scared she was until Tim had gotten back, and she hadn't realized the fear wasn't just for Ducky and Jimmy until he was walking across the Bullpen toward her.

And right now, the only thing easing that fear is touching all of him, as much and as quickly as possible, and feeling him touch her, knowing that hands and lips, cock and tongue, all on her, are real and alive and him.

* * *

In bed after, wrapped around each other, still awake, was in many ways more intense than the sex. Sex makes your body produce happy chemicals that help shut down fear and sorrow.

There's still nothing they can say to each other. No good reassurances that will mean anything, or even begin to approach true. Comforting lies aren't, not when both of you can do the math.

Palmer's nine months anniversary also means it's the nine month anniversary of the explosion. And especially with Palmer and Ducky going missing today, the danger of their jobs, his more than hers, but hers certainly isn't safe, is fresh in both of their minds.

She can feel the weight of all the people they've buried together over the years, and the fact that there is no magic protective shield that will keep any of them safe, and as that settles into her mind, she begins to tremble, and cry.

Tim holds her tighter, still not saying anything, but eventually she notices the tears she feels aren't hers alone.

* * *

In the morning they got up and forced fear into the background, because there's nothing that can be done besides pushing it aside and moving forward.


	39. A Husband's Job

"Okay, I've got four super large Caff-Pows, your tooth brush, toothpaste, enough junk food to last for the next three weeks, and No-Doze. You know you shouldn't take that with the Caff-Pow, right?" McGee asked as he walked into the lab carrying the box filled with the supplies Abby requested.

It looked like an explosion of evidence. "My God, you've got to get through all of this?"

An extraordinarily perky guy bopped up to him and grabbed the box from him. "Yep, all by tomorrow. Don't worry about the No-Doze CaffPow cocktails, Abby and I are pros." He put the box down and hugged McGee, who was standing there very stiffly. "You're McGee, right? Abby said you'd be here in a few minutes."

"And you are?" he asked the complete stranger hugging him.

"Ramsey Boone."

"Hey, McGee," Abby breezed back into the lab. "This is Ramsey." She explained who Ramsey is, how they know each other, and more or less tells him that tonight is about to be a cross between a BFF's sleepover party and evidence-palooza.

"So, there's no shot of you coming home tonight?"

She kissed him. "Nope."

"Okay, then I'll see you in the morning." Boone was standing there grinning at them. Tim wasn't used to having anyone staring at him while he's kissing Abby, so he gave her another quick kiss and then headed home.

* * *

"So, he was your roommate in college?" Tim asks as he slips into his shoes Friday after work. They're in her office getting changed to go out.

"Yeah." She's changing out of what she wore to work, into something a little less formal? More formal? It can be hard to tell with Goth clothing. It's black and lacy. He's getting more dressed up because they're celebrating nabbing the Dead Rose killer.

His eyes narrow a little. "What kind of roommate?"

"Are you jealous?" Abby asks with a smile.

"In ten years, have I ever not been jealous of your boyfriends?"

She nods; the only boyfriends that haven't bothered Tim are the ones he hasn't known about. "The kind that spent full nights studying with me, and after we'd both aced the test we were studying for, we'd go to a bar and pick up guys together."

Tim smiles. "The kind of roommate I like."

She laughs. "Yeah, the kind of guy you're perfectly happy to have hang out with me. I mean, don't get me wrong, we've had sex, but there was always another guy with us."

Tim winces. "I probably didn't need to know that."

"Just you know, if you might be interested in a threeway, Ramsey would be so into you." She grins, very pleased with that double entendre.

Tim's rubbing his eyes, shaking his head.

"Don't you ever think about a threeway?"

He looks up at her. "Okay, well, yes, but not with another guy."

"Double standard much?"

"Yes. Absolutely. Guys don't do anything for me. I have absolutely no desire to see another guy naked, and I really don't want another one watching me have sex, let alone touching me. And honestly, I don't care if it makes me a jerk, but I don't want to see another guy touching you, either."

"Fine." She straightens his tie. "So, who do you think about threewaying with?"

"Could we maybe do this after dinner?"

"Why?"

"Because either I'm going to end up with a hard-on from talking about it, or you'll hear who it is and be unhappy with me, and either way, I'm not interested in sharing that with Ramsey and... Is he bringing a date?"

"Yeah, Kevin. They've been together for two years now." She looks non-plussed. "Back on topic, have I ever been annoyed with one of your fantasies?"

"No."

"Think I'm about to start?"

"I really hope not."

"Tim, honestly, there's not another person on earth who would annoy me."

"Really?" That's pretty reassuring.

"You could tell me you want to share me with Gibbs and it'd be cool."

He winces again, a whole lot of mental images he could have happily spent the rest of his life without hitting him. "Oh God, that's so wrong. That's wrong on more levels than there are levels to be wrong on."

Abby laughs at that. "Every girl has a little bit of a daddy fetish."

"I needed to know that even less than I needed to know you've slept with Ramsey."

"The point is, I'm not going to freak out. Any woman you like enough to think about sleeping with, I'm probably going to like, too."

"You do like her."

Abby looked up, eyes bright.

"Really?"

He smiles, a little sheepish. "Yeah, really."

"Even better." She licked her lips, and Tim could feel his dick twitch a little at the idea of telling her about this.

"Okay, good. And that's where this conversation stops, because I'm not going to dinner with your ex-roommate, especially with your gay ex-roommate, with an erection. When we get back, I'll tell you all about it."

* * *

Dinner with Ramsey and Kevin was fun. Tim felt a little odd being the only straight guy in the mix, by which he's not thinking sexual orientation so much as the only person at their table wearing what most of the rest of society would refer to as "normal" clothing.

He's in jeans, loafers, a dress shirt, tie, and navy blazer, more or less the poster boy for casually dressed up thirty-something male. Ramsey's got on a green blazer, pink shirt, rainbow bow tie, and corduroy trousers. Kevin's clothing isn't too far off of Tim's. He's got a vest instead of a blazer, his tie is... Hell, Tim has no idea what Kevin did to that tie, but he wants to google it when he gets home because it looks really cool, and his sleeves are rolled up to show off both arms covered in tatts from the wrists up.

Abby and Ramsey do a lot of the talking, finishing each other's sentences, filling in the blanks for the evidence hunt. Then moving backwards, talking about school and some of the things they used to get up to at LSU.

Eventually they get to the part of the night where the boyfriends talk about themselves. Kevin's a photographer. He's got work in a few galleries, but makes most of his living doing weddings. Tim finds the fact that Abby's basically showing him off like a trophy to her friend amusing. She's bragging about his writing and police work. Both of the guys are properly impressed by the fact that Tim manages to be a full time cop and write.

And eventually, things wrap up, and promises of getting together again are made, and they head on their way back to her place, which is closer to where they ate.

* * *

They'd gotten in the door, hadn't even closed it yet, when Abby was looking at him, "So, tell me?"

Tim's staring at the door. "Did you get a new lock on your door?"

"Yeah. Gibbs put it in on Monday."

"Why is he installing locks at your place?"

"Is the stress on he or locks?"

"He and your."

"He was doing it for the same reason why he was doing it."

He looks away from the door to her and says, "You lost me on that."

"Murdering psycho out there, and my very favorite gun-toting super special agent isn't always here. You were on all night, so he made sure I got home safe and took care of the door."

That was a deluge of information he hadn't known. He knew she was scared, but not that Gibbs had seen her home, let alone installed a lock for her. "Were you even going to ask me to do your lock?"

"Have you ever done one before?"

"Yes."

"Then next time I'll ask you to do it."

Tim's staring at the door. "Next time it'll be my house, too."

"True. I found some more places to check out on Sunday."

He's still staring at the door. Which is when Abby starts to get this might be a bit more serious than she thought.

She touches his shoulder. "Does it bother you that I asked Gibbs for help?"

"Yeah." He looks at her, and she can see he's really upset about this. "I'm here three nights a week. You're at my place just as often. The only nights we don't sleep together are the nights where one of the two of us doesn't get to sleep. If you don't feel safe here, go to my place, or ask me to secure your door! That's my job now, not his."

"And when you're working, and he's here, and sees the deadbolt I bought during lunch, and offers to put it in for me because he knows I'm scared, should I say, nope, that's McGee's job?"

"Yes."

The look she's giving him clearly says she thinks he's insane.

"Look, there are things that are my job now. Keeping you safe. That's number one on the list. That's what a husband does."

The _you're insane_ look melts away. It's replaced by something a lot softer, and a lot sweeter. She steps in closer to him and touches his cheek.

He's staring into her eyes, looking determined and worried. "It's my job to be here. It's my job to be the man who keeps you safe."

"And when you aren't here?"

His eyes close, open slowly, and focus on hers. "I don't know. I should be here."

"But you aren't, not always. Keeping a lot of other people safe, that's you job, too."

"I know."

"And you love your job."

"I do."

He rests his head on her shoulder and sighs.

"If it's not going to be you, is there anyone else you'd rather I turned to than Gibbs?"

"No." But she can see he's thinking, hard, about this. The problem that, can't, won't go away.

So she tries to nudge it back into the background and help get them moving forward into the weekend, instead of back to work. "Tonight you are here, and I'm here, and the job isn't going to change or go away, so how about we go to bed, and you tell me about your fantasy threesome?"

* * *

They're brushing their teeth, and he's still on edge. Finally he puts the brush down, leans against the sink and pulls her to him, his hands on her hips, pelvis to pelvis and forehead to forehead. "You say the word, and I will be here every night."

"Tim?"

"I don't want you scared and alone. Ask me to, and I'll have a desk job with regular hours in ten minutes."

"I can't ask that."

"Why not?"

"It's not fair. It's not fair to you. I won't be home every night. It's not fair to rip you away from a job you love for the three nights a year I've got the willies. It's not fair to Gibbs or Tony or Ziva. It's not fair to Vance or, God, poor Dornaget; he'd end up being Tony's new Probie all the time. And it's not fair to the hundreds of people you'd save or avenge or give some peace by catching the bad guys. I'm a grown woman. I'm armed, and you know I can shoot. I've got a door you'd need a battering ram to break down. I can take a few nights a year on my own."

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"Go shooting with me tomorrow?"

"Okay."

* * *

They're in bed when she says, "So, come on, tell me."

"I'm not exactly feeling wildly sexy right now."

"But you will be if you start talking to me. Here," she sits up, "take off your jammies and roll onto your side."

He sits up and shucks off the sweat pants and MIT T-shirt he had on and rolls onto his side. "I'm starting to think pajamas are overrated. We put them on, and most nights take them off less than an hour later, and then put them back on again. Seems like a waste of energy."

"Facing away from me." He flips so his back is to her, and she settles in behind him, her hands brushing his neck. "It gets cold in here."

"We could get another comforter."

"That'd probably take care of chilly." She begins to rub his neck and shoulders. "Still, getting them off can be a whole lot of fun."

Okay, yeah that was true. "Then wearing them can be a signal that's the sort of fun one of us wants." Her thumbs press up into the top of his neck, just below his skull, and he sighs. "That's good."

"Yeah, you're really tense right now."

"The door thing freaked me out."

"I noticed." She's kneading his neck, rolling tight muscles under her fingers.

"My dad was gone three hundred days a year some years."

"Oh."

"For something like five years he would be on his ship for six months, have two with us, and then six months on board again.

"My mom's dad was great. He was always there for us. He would have installed a deadbolt if my mom wanted one. He was the one who brought my mom and Sarah home from the hospital when she was born, 'cause the Admiral wasn't anywhere around. He taught me how to drive. I loved my grandfather, and I miss him like crazy sometimes, but I don't want Gibbs to be that guy for you. I don't want him to have to be that guy for you."

"It's not the same thing." Her hands go still, just holding his neck, keeping it warm.

"Isn't it? You want or need something, and I'm not here for it."

"You want to be here, right?"

"Yes."

"Did your Dad?"

Tim has to think about that, and while he does she moves onto his shoulders. Trapezius, he thinks, feeling the sharp almost burn of too tight muscles fighting relaxing. He takes a deep breath and tries to make his shoulder let go of the tension.

Finally he feels the muscles start to melt, and finally he comes up with an answer. "No. He didn't. Not really. He was always on edge at home. He wanted to be on a ship."

"You planning on leaving for ten months a year?"

"No. I'd resign before I'd take afloat at this point."

She kisses the nape of his neck, not needing to say anything more to that. She spends a few more moments rubbing his back as he continues to relax into it. He's quiet while she does it.

"What are you thinking?"

"Latissimus dorsi, erector spinae," her hands move down his back, along his spine and cup his hip, thumbs pressing into the muscles, "illiac crest, gluetus medius, deep hip rotators. Ow. Don't Rolf me."

"Sorry. You're really tight. Body work wouldn't be a bad plan. So you're just naming the muscles I'm working on."

"Not really, I'm just aware of where your hands are."

"Okay."

She scoots a little closer, so she's pressed up against his back. He can feel she's still got her jammies on, boxers and a T-shirt, but off the top of his head, he can't remember which ones she's wearing. They're at her place, so they're probably not his, but that's about as well as he knows. Her arm snakes around him, and begins to rub his chest. It's not so much erotic as relaxing. More of what she had been doing to the back of him. He sighs.

"Feels good."

"You're shoulders get that tight, it'll affect your pecs as well."

"Yep. Physiology 101. Anything that gets side A will also affect side B."

She kisses his shoulder, and licks it lightly.

"That feels good, too."

"Good. Are you sleepy?"

"A little. Looking forward to sleeping in with you tomorrow morning. Really hoping we don't get a call out."

"I'm not feeling one."

"Your gut is telling you no call outs?"

"I call them psychic vibes, but gut works fine, too."

He laughs a little. Inhales deeply, and lets it out slowly. He's starting to feel a lot more relaxed and a bit on the playful side.

"So, you really want to know about my fantasy threesome?"

"Yes!" Suddenly that hand that had been massaging his pec was now gently stroking his nipple. "So, who are you thinking of?"

"Usually or most recently?"

She sounds a little surprised. "You think about it that often?"

"Probably number eight on the top ten fantasies."

"So, really, who, usually?"

"Breena."

"Breena? That's who you're so worried about? I'd do her." He can imagine the look she's giving him based on the way her voice sounds. She was right; this was very much not a big deal to her.

"Really?"

"Sure." She kisses his shoulder again. "She's not gonna do us. Especially not without Jimmy. The girl who waits twenty-seven years until her wedding day probably isn't interested in a threesome without her husband."

"Probably isn't interested in one with him, either."

Abby nods. "So, why did you think I'd be bothered?"

"We actually know her, for one."

"Rather you were interested in sleeping with friends than strangers."

He thinks about that for a moment. "Why?"

"Sex should at least be friendly. And if you like a beautiful woman, I'm gonna think there's something wrong with you if you aren't interested in having sex with her."

"Huh. I'm a jerk if that isn't a two way street, aren't I?"

"What? You don't want me wanting to have sex with all my guy friends?"

He nods.

He feels her shrug. "Not a jerk, you're just a guy. It's your biological imperative versus mine. You want to make sure the babies you're providing for are yours. You don't want to waste energy on kids that aren't yours. So you want to keep me away from other guys and get as many girls as you can. I'm designed to make sure those kids grow up, so forming relationships with whomever can help that is good for me. So, what's number two?"

"Number two?" He lost her somewhere on the biology bit. Not that he didn't understand the evolutionary stuff she was talking about, just that the number two thing didn't seem to go along with it.

"You said 'we know her, for one'... That suggests number two."

"Oh, yeah... She's just so..." He tries to think of a way to put this into words. "Wholesome?"

She presses up tight against his back and squeezes him. "Baby, if I hadn't figured out by now that you get off on forbidden fruit, I'm not paying attention. The perky, blond, virgin-until-her-wedding-day wife, of your best married friend couldn't get any less forbidden. Of course you're going to want her."

"Want you more."

"And you should. Tell me what you fantasize about the three of us doing?" The hand that had been playing with his nipple stroked down his body, and curled around his dick.

"We're on my sofa."

"Just hanging out?"

"Yeah, talking, maybe having a drink or something. You're in the middle. I'm on your right; she's on your left."

"Where's Jimmy?"

"Not with us. Beyond that, I have no idea. He's just not there. In my fantasy world, Jimmy basically doesn't exist."

She laughs at that. "So how do we know Breena?"

He turns to look at her. "Are your fantasies that detailed? Mine tend to get straight to the sex."

She kisses him, and then gently nudges him back to facing away from her. "Then by all means, let's get to the sex." He feels her giggling as she says that, and the hand on his dick releases, her fingers begin just ghosting along the head, soft, feather light touches that he can barely feel.

"She says something, and we're laughing, and no, I have no idea what she says, the laughing part is the important bit, because we're having fun. And we start to calm down, and I lean in and kiss you, and you kiss back, and for a moment that's all that's going on. But I have my arm around you, so I feel it when she strokes your arm.

"It's soft, tentative, like she can't believe she'd do this, but wants to anyway. Like she can't not touch you."

"So, in your fantasy, I'm the one in the middle?"

"Ish."

"Ish?" She sounds intrigued by that.

"Just let me tell it."

"Okay." She takes her fingers away, does something, sucks on them he guesses, because when she returns to petting his dick her fingers are wet and slippery.

"Mmmm..." That felt good. His eyes slip shut and he relaxes further, getting into a storytelling frame of mind. "You pull back from my lips when you realize my arm in on your shoulder, so the hand stroking down your arm isn't mine. You turn to her, and she's staring at you with wide eyes, just really looking at you, her hand on your wrist. She drags her fingers down your hand, really lightly, and I can see the goosebumps rise on your skin.

"You flip your hand over, and she traces along your palm, and then slowly up the inside of your arm."

"Am I wearing a short sleeve shirt?"

"Tank top. She's wearing a little, sleeveless blouse thing, with buttons, and you're both wearing skirts."

"What are you wearing?"

"It doesn't matter. By the time I'm naked in the fantasy, I'm just naked."

"We don't undress you?"

"You're busy."

"Jeans. You've got on jeans. Black belt. We're home, hanging out, it's probably a weekend, so, t-shirt, and if you've got on a t-shirt you're wearing sneakers."

"I don't wear my belts with t-shirts."

"No belt then."

"Okay, so we're all dressed and on the sofa. Do you want any other scene setting?"

"How's the lighting?"

"Night. Overhead light and kitchen light are on."

"Okay. I've got it in my mind."

"Good. What was happening?"

"Breena was feeling up my arm."

"She brushes her hand up your arm, and you squirm a little, because it's soft and tickly." He holds the arm that's wrapped around him out for a moment and trails his hand up the inside of her arm, tips of his nails causing sharp tickly, tingly sensations to race through her.

"She's got those long, pink fingernails, and I'm watching them slip up your skin. And as you squirm, the side of your breast rubs against the back of her knuckles. She blushes when that happens, and starts to pull back, but you stop her, you take her hand in yours, and use your other hand to stroke up the inside of her arm."

"You get off on arm petting?"

"It's character development. This is Breena. She's got to be coaxed, gently into this."

"So, Jimmy just doesn't exist, but there's an entire backstory for the seduction of Breena?"

"Yes."

Abby laughs.

"Anyway, you're trailing your hand up her arm, stroking it lightly, almost more brushing the hairs on her arm than the skin, and she's still just staring at you. Like you are the most beautiful, most desirable person ever. And as you reach her shoulder she's leaning toward you, wanting more, but there's still some fear in her eyes, she doesn't know if this is okay, if she's allowed to have you.

"You lay your hand on her shoulder, cupping it, and gently pull her toward you. She comes to you, easily, sitting right next to you, her leg pressed against yours.

"You reach out with your right hand, and stroke her face. She turns into your hand, opening her lips a little, eyes slipping shut, sighing at the touch.

"Your thumb drags across her bottom lip and she lightly, with just the tip of her tongue, licks across the pad of your thumb. You moan a little at that."

"Have I ever moaned when you've licked my thumb?"

"Okay, _I_ moan a little at that."

"Better."

"Your fingers slip down her neck, and flick open the top button of her shirt. She feels you do it, and grabs both of your wrists, holding them in front of her, and then lowers your hands so they're lying on her lap. She leans in and kisses you.

"And it's really slow, and soft, and lots of lip and tongue action, and honestly I can run this part in my mind for a pretty long time."

"So, do you actually do anything in this fantasy, or do you just watch?"

"We'll get there." Her fingers lightly stroking his dick and the image of Abby and Breena kissing combine, start to make him hard.

"She starts to whimper, soft, breathy, needy sounds. She wants more than your lips. She lets go of your wrists, and her one hand's closing around you knee, and the other snaking around your back. She jumps a little when she does that, because by doing that she touches me, and for the first time she seems to notice I'm still in the room.

"She breaks the kiss, pulls back, looks at both of us, and asks, 'Is this okay?'

"You nod, and I manage to choke out, 'Yes!'

"I shift so I'm kneeling on the floor in front of both of you. She's still staring at us, and you're grinning at her, unbuttoning the top button on her blouse.

"I lean in and kiss you, quickly, mostly just showing you how turned on I am, making sure this really is cool with you. Then I turn to her, and gently touch her face, and stop, waiting for permission. She nods, and I lean in to kiss her. And again it's soft and wet and open mouths and lots of tongue and I can taste you on her, and smell her perfume mixed with yours.

"Her one hand closes around mine, and the other is still wrapped around your waist. You're nibbling my ear while you unbutton her blouse."

Abby's light petting and talking about kissing means he's good and hard now. She wraps her fingers around him and begins to slide her hand up and down. "This is what you do when you think about this, right?"

"That's awfully close."

"What do you do differently?"

"I'm usually in the shower, but if I'm not, I use some lube."

She lets go of him, and his back feels cold as she rolls over to the nightstand to grab the lube. But then her hand is wrapped around him, and it's slick and tight, and he's perfectly happy with that.

He sighs, hips slowly rocking. "That's really good."

"So, the shower, huh?"

He shrugs a little. "Easy clean up."

"Sometimes it's really nice to be a girl."

"You can get off as often as you like, don't have to worry about making a mess, and don't have to worry about everyone seeing when you're turned on. Yeah, I'd say that's nice."

"Wet panties aren't all that much fun if you've got to wear them for too long."

"I'll take your word for it."

"So... we're all kissing..."

"And you're unbuttoning her blouse. That's another really clear image, your long fingers slipping buttons through their holes, and each new inch of naked skin.

"I pull back to watch. One hand on her hip, one on yours, as you slip your hand into her blouse, fingers lightly stroking her chest and breast. She's got on this small, white, lace bra, and your fingers skim over it, lightly pulling it down, so I can see one of her breasts.

"You were kissing her, but you pull your head back, and lick down her neck to that breast, and I watch you roll your tongue over her nipple.

"She gasps at that, half-surprised you're doing it, half-surprised at how good it feels to have a soft, wet, female mouth on her.

"She's thinking about how pretty it looks, your mouth on her, the way your tongue just glides over her skin."

"She's thinking it?"

"Well, I am, really, but she is, too."

"And what are you doing while I'm licking Breena?"

"In the fantasy I'm just watching. In real life I'd probably have a hard-on so hard that lack of blood to my brain would have caused me to pass out."

Abby laughs at that, kissing the back of his neck, and stroking him a little faster.

"Does she do anything to me?"

"She will. She cups your neck in her hand, and pulls you up for another kiss, her hands finding the hem of your shirt, and pulling it up and off of you.

"You're not wearing a bra. For a moment she just watches you, then she tells you to stand up, so you do, and she tugs off your skirt. You've got on those little red lace panties. The ones I got you with the rose on the hip." She nods, knowing which ones he's talking about. "She stands up too, and she's shorter than you are, so she arches up on her tip toes, runs her fingers through your hair, and kisses you long and hard, pressing up against you.

"Your hands are slipping all over her, under her shirt, over the skirt, and I'm thinking she's wearing entirely too much clothing, so while you kiss, I slip her skirt off. She lets go of you long enough for me to get her shirt and bra off.

"I press up behind her, lifting her hair out of the way, kissing her neck and back, while you kiss her lips. I stroke my hands over yours, up your arms, skimming them over the sides of your breasts and down your sides to the panties, and then slip them off of you, kissing my way down Breena's back and leg while I do it."

"Nicely coordinated."

"Thank you." He grins for a moment at that, and she adds a very pleasant twist to what her hand is doing. "As I stand back up, licking my way up her leg, she stops standing on her toes, and begins kissing her way down your jaw and neck. Her tongue traces along your collarbone, and down to your breast. She's licking you all over, her hand cupping you, while her other hand drifts down your stomach and stops right above your pubic hair, not touching, yet."

Her hand, which had been slipping over him in a steady slow rhythm stopped, and just held him. "You really like girl on girl foreplay, don't you?"

"I wrote two lesbian erotic novels. What do you think? You want me to just skip ahead to the part where you put on the strap on and we both do Breena?"

He couldn't see if her eyes went wide when he said that, but her voice sounded like they might have when she asked, "You go there in this fantasy?"

"I could."

"Wait, how much of this is your usual fantasy, and how much of this is you telling me a sexy story?"

"About fifty-fifty by this point."

"How about you stick to the regular fantasy?"

"If you want me to."

"Yeah, I want to hear what you like, not what you think I like."

"Okay, I step behind you, kissing your neck and shoulders, and take her hand in mine, and lead it down, showing her how you like to be touched. Guiding her fingers with mine, making you moan and gasp. And you're so wet and slick; I can't not fuck you, so I nudge your foot, and you know that means I want you to spread your legs, so you do, and I slip inside you." Her hand tightens on him as he says that and speeds up.

"So, you're naked now?"

He doesn't answer for a second, just feeling her hand moving on him. "Yep, just like magic.

"I'm not moving too much, mostly just enjoying being inside you," and her hand slows down, but stays tight, "and keeping you and Breena from falling over. You're leaning into me, and she's pressed up tight against you, kissing you hard while her fingers go to work.

"She's a pretty quick study. You're hips are rolling, eyes half-closed, face and chest flushing."

"How can you see that?"

"Third person omniscient narration. I can tell you what Breena's thinking if you like."

She licks his ear and giggles a little, and then begins to slide her hand over him the same speed her hips move when they roll the way he's talking about.

He sighs. "Yeah, just like that... Mmmmmm... So she shifts over a little, straddling your leg, riding it, moaning gently. And you know what she wants, taking one of your hands, slipping it into her panties, and begin to finger her.

"She stops you, steps back, takes the panties off, and then crushes back up against you, fingers moving faster and faster as you thrust between us." Abby's hand matches his narration, moving faster, tighter, less coordinated, against him.

"She's kissing you, rubbing her breasts against yours, as her hand flies over your clit, and I grind into you, making sure to get that angle you love, and you're making that soft, breathy, I'm-gonna-climax-in-two-strokes sound. She sucks your bottom lip, hard, and you're gone, twitching and pulsing, hand clenched in her hair as you get off." She squeezes her hand as she stokes it up and down him fast, and then just holds him, giving him soft, easy, and non-rhythmic squeezes.

"We hold you for a few minutes, letting you come down." Her hand went soft and snug around him, not moving.

"When you do, you slip off of me, and away from Breena, pushing her in towards me. I grab her hips, pulling her flush against me, grinding against her stomach, while you stand behind her and play with her breasts.

"The two of us kiss, hot and hard. I'm tongue fucking her while you start with your fingers, and after a minute, she breaks away from us, taking each of us by the hand, and says, 'Sofa.'

"She has me sit on the sofa, then straddles me, facing you, pulling your head down to kiss while she eases onto me." Abby's hand tightened and began to slip down him.

"And she's soft, and hot, and wet, and different. Not tighter, but just different. Really good. My hands are on her hips, not guiding her so much as just touching her, and she nudges you down, so you're kissing her breasts, and then you look at both of us, and smile, pure, happy, wicked, sexy joy in your eyes, and you lean further down, and being to lick her pussy.

"You're being careful about it, not touching me, just getting her clit, and she moans while you do it, thrusting into your mouth, trying to get more pressure from your tongue, but you pull back, kneel in front of us, and hug both of us, and then lean over her shoulder and kiss me.

"I'm licking her off your lips while she rocks on my cock... And it's almost too much... It's like being swallowed by sex." His hips are moving faster, meeting the firm and fast stroke of her hand. His breath is coming faster, and his balls are starting to pull up.

She stopped stroking. "This is a really long fantasy. How long does it take you to masturbate?"

That derailed his train of thought. His eyes snap open and he looks over his shoulder at her. "How long? I've never timed myself. Long enough to get it done. Usually though, I don't have someone interrupting me every...You're doing this on purpose!"

"You think I might be drawing this out, frustrating you, on purpose?" Her hand began slowly stroking over his dick.

"You are!"

"I wouldn't do that, would I?" She kisses the tip of his nose and grins.

"You're evil, you know that?"

She kissed his shoulder, nudged his head so he was looking forward again, tightened her hand and gave him a few fast pumps followed by a few soft, gentle, slow ones.

"And yet you love me anyway. Keep talking."

He closes his eyes and tries to get back to where they were. "Okay," he said with a sigh, bringing the image, scent, taste, and feel back into his mind. "You break the kiss, and I lean back on the sofa, Breena riding me. You sit on the floor, cross-legged, and begin to lick both of us. I can hear you lapping against her, and every few strokes, as I pull out, I feel your tongue drag down my dick, and then you go back to her, switching between us randomly enough that neither of us knows where you're going to go next." She's pumping him fast, and he's not having a hard time getting back into it. "I reach down, spread her lips farther apart, and begin to finger her, because I want to feel her come on me. You lick my balls for a minute, and I squirm happily while you do, then you move my finger out of the way and take over on her.

"Then she's crying out... Coming on my cock... Your tongue driving her mad."

He's thrusting fast against her hand, and realizes he's got to draw this back some if he doesn't want to get off before she gets into the action. He takes her hand in his and stops her.

For a few seconds he holds her hand, letting himself slide back from the edge. "Don't get me wrong, I love what you're doing, but if you don't back off, I'm going to be useless for the rest of the night."

She squeezed him a little tighter and pumped him fast. "Finish the story. Your fantasy, you get to get off. Tomorrow morning, we'll even up the score."

That sounded really good. "Okay, then grab some tissues for me. Mess on the bottom sheet is easy enough to deal with. Don't want to get cum all over the top sheet."

"Roll onto your back. I've got you for this."

He did, and she shifted, moving so she was kneeling between his legs. Then she bent and took just the head between her lips, holding the base of the shaft in her fist.

"Ohhhhh..."

She stayed perfectly still, hand and mouth not moving.

That took a bit more of the edge off, toned down the need to climax. He waited for a few more breaths, to see what she was going to do, and just as he was about to ask she pulls back and says, "You keep talking, I keep moving. Stop talking and I go still."

"Okay. She slips off of me, and says, 'On the floor.' So I lie down on the floor.

"Each one of you is kneeling next to me, and you're both kissing each other, and your hands are twined around me, sliding up and down. I'm thrusting along with it, enjoying the feel of it, loving seeing you two do it together.

"Then Breena breaks the kiss. She bends down, licking me while you stroke. She lets go, but you keep jacking me while she laps at the tip." Abby started to mimic what he was saying. "Oh, God, yeah, like that..." His voice trailed off and as it did so her hand and mouth moved more slowly, coming to a stop.

He started talking again with a quick breath, "Yeah, licking. She's licking. The tip of her tongue rubbing against the underside. And your hand is moving nice and slow, driving me crazy." And once again she mimics what he's saying.

"I grab you, pull you up to my mouth, and roll onto my side. You get the idea, my head cradled on your leg as I lick and suck you. And Breena is still sucking me, but she hasn't quite gotten how this works, so you tell her to lie on her side and hitch her leg up. And she does, and you go down on her.

"And there's no middle, or we're all in the middle..." Abby's hands and mouth speed up and he's breathing hard enough it's making it difficult to talk.

"And I'm...licking you... pussy on my mouth... feeling... tasting... You're all over me... Taste so good...

"And she's...oh...fuck...yeah...sucking...just...like...shit...that. Oh fuck. God, baby... can't talk... please don't stop."

And Abby didn't. She kept up the suction, using her hands to stroke along with her tongue and lips, and in a few strokes he was shuddering, pleasure tingling through all of him. He felt her swallow, gently suck a few more times, swallow again, and release him.

"C'mere." He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her deeply. It's not that he's particularly fond of the taste of his semen, but he does love the taste of him on her. After a minute's kiss he said, sounding sleepy, "I so owe you tomorrow."

"Yeah, you do."

"You'll have to tell me yours."

"Are you sure you want to hear it?"

"Your favorite one with another girl."

He can feel her smile at that idea.


	40. Texts From Afghanistan

He's lying on his cot, not sleeping. Sleeping would be a hell of a lot easier if he wasn't on a cot, two feet away from Gibbs, in fucking Afghanistan, where he most decidedly does not want to be.

His phone is on silent, but he feels it buzz.

_Bedtime?_ It's a text from Abby.

_About twenty minutes ago. You just getting up?_

_Yeah. Check your email._

He does. There are ten new emails from her. He opens the first one, and it's a picture she took of herself snuggled into his bed, on his pillow. He smiles a little at that, and then goes to the next one. The next one takes a second to open. It's got some sort of mild encryption on it. Same basic pose, her in bed, laying snuggled up with his pillow, but this time the comforter is back enough so he can see she's wearing the cobalt blue silk teddy with the white lace trim he got her a few days earlier.

He opens the third one, and this one takes a few seconds to open. A little more encryption. This one's a panties shot, and yes, she's wearing the panties that go with that teddy. Her hand is splayed open against her inner thigh, thumb on her mound, index finger just dipping under the hem at her leg, but what really gets his attention is the tiny, probably dime-sized, wet spot on the crotch.

He hasn't gotten that hard that fast without a girl actually touching him since he was fourteen.

He shuts down email really fast and finds another text from her.

_Like what you saw?_

_You are evil. Gibbs is sleeping two feet away from me!_

_Then you'll just have to be really quite._

_I'll have to just be really frustrated. I'm not jerking off with him right next to me._

_Why not? You can be quiet._

_Not that quiet._

_So go to the head._

_Communal showers, communal head._

_No stalls?_

_No._

_Yuck._

_Yeah. No privacy, at all, until Germany, two days from now._

_Poor baby. Did you look at all of them?_

_Just the first three._

_There's some really good stuff in there. _

He grits his teeth, wanting to groan, not wanting to wake up Gibbs as he images what really good stuff might be.

_This is not helping with being frustrated._

_How about this: I won't touch myself until you get back, and when you do, we'll tear each other's clothes off and fuck like bunnies._

_I'm sensing you do not grasp the concept of how male sexual frustration works. _

_Maybe not. ;) But I certainly get teasing and anticipation. And it's not like four days of no sex is a record for you._

_True enough._

_So I'll be home, in your bed, wearing the frilly lacy things you've bought me, not touching myself, waiting for you to get home._

_You are killing me._

_:P So what is your record?_

_On my own or with a woman?_

_Both_

_Seven days on my own, eighteen months with a woman. You?_

_Six weeks on my own, ten months with a guy._

_Six weeks?_

_Gave it up for Lent once._

_Huh. I had the flu for the seven days._

_LOL_ He can imagine the look on her face as she laughs at that. _So, lack of sex aside, how is it going?_

_Hot, dry, people want to kill us, same old, same old. You?_

_Lot better than that. How's Dex?_

_He's a Labrador in a war zone with a job to do, and Gibbs is doting on him. He's happy as a clam._

_You ever want another dog? _ German Shepherds live ten to twelve years, and Jethro was already six when he got him. He had died last year.

_No. Loving something I was going to outlive by fifty years once was enough. _

_I get that._

_How about you? The new place will let us have one, you want a pet?_

_A kitten?_

_I'm allergic to them._

_Ferret?_

_Eat your computer wires._

_Bunny?_

_See Ferret._

_Chinchilla?_

_You can't get them wet._

_Why would you want to get a chinchilla wet?_

_I wouldn't. But if they get wet they get sick._

_That makes no sense. They're animals that live outdoors, in the jungle, where it rains._

_Look, that's what my mom told us when my sister wanted one. They make bad pets because if you get them wet, they die. _He waited, but no new words popped up. It occurs to him that just possibly his mom wasn't telling the truth about that. She wasn't exactly a pet person, and didn't want any sort of small furry thing living in their home. _Are you laughing at that?_

_No. Just couldn't figure out what to say to it. Anyway, I don't think we're getting a pet._

_Probably not._

_So, Gibbs is sleeping?_

_He's laying down, his eyes are closed, and he's snoring. If he's not asleep, I don't know what asleep is._

_What I'd give to see that. Take a picture?_

_No!_

_Come on. You know you want to._

_Fine._

He rolled onto his side and aimed his phone, and without opening his eyes Gibbs said, "Take a picture and die, McGee. Tell Abby goodnight and go to sleep."

_Apparently, I don't know what asleep is. I've been ordered to go to tell you goodnight and go to sleep._

_Goodnight_

_Love you._

_Love you, too._

* * *

A/N: Okay, I absolutely adored Seek. Best episode of the year. I loved the fact that we get confirmation that Tim still writes, and the look on his face when Gibbs says they're going to Afghanistan is priceless. And you can see Gibbs is enjoying taking him way too much. (More on that in a later chapter.) That's exactly the way I would have written that scene, but they did it for me! YAY!


	41. Homecoming

Before his relationship with Abby, Tim got off about four times a week. And "about" had a lot to do with the caseload, how often Tony showed up at his place, how the writing was going, stuff like that. The busier he was the less interested in sex he tended to be.

But most mornings, if he had a little time, his shower didn't just involve getting clean. (Or you could say some parts of him got *very* clean.)

Since Abby, that number has jumped to seven. And he really likes seven. He especially enjoys the fact that it's seven, and he's not doing himself. Not that he's not good at doing himself, just that it's a whole lot better when she's doing it.

So, he's not exactly relishing Afghanistan.

By day three of no orgasms, he's getting something of an edge. His tolerance for stupid mistakes and minor annoyances is dropping. By the end of day three, he's come to the conclusion that Gibbs never jerks off. That's his best bet for why he's always so intense, because Tim's starting to feel it himself. He's not nearly as laid back or mild mannered as he usually is. But Gibbs is just the same as he always is, if anything, he's a little more laid back than usual, because apparently being in a war zone where there are snipers and IED's hidden all over the place and people want to kill them is relaxing to him.

So, by the middle of day three, when they are getting ready to finish this, Tim is majorly looking forward to getting home.

Then Dex got shot, and that meant he was stuck in Afghanistan even longer than they had expected.

Day four, when he should be on a plane heading home, but isn't, because Dex can't travel yet, he's getting turned on by stupid things. Supposedly there are women around here somewhere, but he hasn't seen one. Instead he's noticed the arched doorways on the local mosque look a little like a stylized vagina, and that's getting to him.

Day five, there's not much to do. Tony and Ziva have taken care of the stateside part of the case. They've got their end wrapped up. So all they've got to do is wait for Dex to get stable to travel. It's not a terrible wound, but they want to make sure all of the anesthesia is out of his system before putting him on a plane. So, mostly, he's sitting around, trying to keep himself from fantasizing too much about the last time he and Abby made love.

He'd taken the picture of the pendant, put it into Google Image Search, and came up with who it belonged to in about eight minutes. He looked at her and said, "So, all night, huh?"

"We'll just have to find something else to do for the next ten hours," she replied with a smile.

And so they did, putting those fuzzy white lambskin rugs in her office to good use.

Day six, Gibbs keeps giving him these looks, and he doesn't exactly know what those looks mean, but between the looks and getting shanghaied into this trip in the first place he's almost pissed off enough to hit him for it.

Why would Gibbs bring him to Afghanistan? It's not like he relishes this kind of thing under the best of conditions and super-hot girlfriend at home does not equal best of conditions. Plus Tony and Ziva both like to travel; they enjoy dangerous places and roughing it. Meanwhile Tim wants Abby, a soft bed, and a hot shower.

18:00 (DC time) on day six and Dex is cleared to travel. Finally, they're on an airplane heading towards Germany, and in less than twenty hours will be home, where Abby is.

Where Abby is naked, in bed, wet and wanting, and not touching herself, waiting for him to come home and... And he forces himself not to think about that, or the pictures on his phone which he's been aching to see, but has not seen because if architecture is giving him a hard on, porn starring his favorite person on earth is going to kill him.

In Germany there's privacy. So, of course, in Germany they're more or less running from one packed plane to the next. He has literally enough time to pee and nothing else before getting on the next plane.

He tries to sleep in the air. Trying to get himself closer to his normal schedule. And it works, sort of. He can't really sleep on a troop transport. Unlike Gibbs, he never acquired the ability to sleep anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat. So he falls into a dreaming three-quarters doze.

He's aware enough of where he is to pull out of the dream of fucking Abby in her office on those fuzzy white lambskin rugs before he gets off.

Gibbs just grins at him when he wakes up, and he growls a little, wondering if he was talking in his sleep. He was talking in the dream, saying some really fabulously, exquisitely, just full on filthy things to her while she rode him. He's hard as a rock and thankful that because of the position he's in and his jacket on his lap, no one can see that.

He's more thankful that he woke up in time and won't have to spend the next however long in slowly drying shorts, with Gibbs, who is full on smirking at him and enjoying this way, way too much, as a seatmate.

Dex stares up at him, big brown puppy eyes, and he pets him. Dex settles his head on his paws and yawns, falling back to sleep.

That's not a bad idea, so he goes back to sleep, and this time, doesn't dream.

* * *

It's 3:30 when they land, and Gibbs says, "Go home."

So he does.

He texts Abby when he gets into his car. _Just landed. Hour from your place._ Her apartment is closer to Andrews than his is, so that's where he's heading.

A minute later he gets one back. _:)_

_You wearing a skirt?_ He types when he gets to the next stoplight.

_Yeah_

_Take your panties off before you get home, unless you want me to rip them off of you._

His phone buzzes, another text, but he's driving so he forces himself to ignore it. Forces himself not to let the image of her in a tiny, little skirt, no panties, legs wrapped around his hips as he fucks her through the wall distract him from the cars around him.

At the next stoplight, he picks up the phone.

_I wasn't wearing any. Haven't for two days. Got a Brazillian wax day before yesterday._

He groans at that. There was another text.

_Got an erection?_

He types quickly. _Since Germany. Am driving. Getting on 95 in a minute. Gonna make you come so hard you see stars._

The light is just changing to green when his phone buzzes. He's four cars back so he reads the text.

_Just once?_

He types fast. _As many as you can take._

And then he's got to drive again.

When he gets to her place, he scans the parking garage but doesn't see her car. He growls a little at that, but grabs his bag and heads up to her apartment. He tosses his things into the living room and stands there, waiting.

_Just got home. Where are you?_

He paces around the living room, not sure what to do with himself.

Finally, after three minutes his cell buzzes. _Five minutes out. You still dressed?_

_Yeah_

_What are you wearing?_

_Blue button down, green cargo pants, black jacket, sneakers._ He'd packed for four days and ended up out for six, so this clothing was on its second wear.

_Undies?_

_Black knit boxers._

_Everything off._

_Yes._

He strips down and wonders how fast he can get a shower. Hasn't had one in close to thirty hours and the clothing he's been wearing isn't exactly fresh.

But she'll be home in three minutes, and he's not that fast. In three minutes all he can get is wet. And she knows he's been on a plane for more than twenty hours, and that the trip lasted two days longer than it was supposed to, so it's not like he's had the chance to get a shower recently or has an overabundance of clean clothing. She would have told him to get a shower if she wanted him to. He's fairly sure of that.

He's pacing the living room, naked, phone in hand, waiting to see if he'll get another text. An idea hits, he can look at the pictures now. He opens his email and begins to look. He'd had thousands of ideas of what might have been in those pictures and most of them were wrong, and none of them were nearly as good as seeing what she had sent him.

He's on the seventh shot, her naked, fingering herself, eyes closed, back arched, chest flushed, looking like she's about to come, when he hears her hand on the door knob. He put the phone down, fast, and yanks open the door.

He looks at her, eyes hungry, body aching for her, cock leaking, and pulls her close. He registers that she does have on a little tan plaid skirt, a white tank top, and her nipples are hard, and then he was kicking shut the door and lifting her into his arms, as she wrapped her legs around his hips.

Her lips and tongue meet his as his cock sinks into her. He groans, loud, almost pained, so happy to be back in her.

"Fuck! Tim!" Her voice is breathy and she locks her feet together on the small of his back while wrapping one arm around his shoulders and tangling her hand in his hair.

He savors being fully in her for a few seconds and then takes two steps, backing her to the wall.

"Gonna fuck you through the wall."

"Please!"

And there was nothing even remotely soft, or tender, or gentle about what came next. Just fast, hard, licking, biting, touching each other as much and as fully as they can, all at once, firework sex. And like a firework, it was over a lot faster than either of them really would have liked.

He was leaning against her, breathing hard, still holding her up, feeling, honestly, embarrassed.

He grins sheepishly. "Okay, that wasn't quite how I had planned that."

She smiles gently and kisses him, stroking his face. "How did you plan it?"

He lightly licks her bottom lip. "Among other things, I envisioned you getting off and me lasting for more than thirty seconds."

She laughs and kisses him again, looking amused. "Good thirty seconds?"

"Fast thirty seconds. I missed you." He kisses her, lips slow and lingering.

"I noticed." She kisses him back, another slow lingering kiss. "I missed you, too." She squirms a little. "I'm noticing something else."

"Yeah, me, too." He's not going soft. And he's not feeling much of what could be called any sort of desire to pull out or go to sleep. In fact, he's still feeling awfully turned on. He thrust against her again, and yep, that felt really good.

She sighs as he does that. "That's nice."

"That's a fucking miracle."

"I'll take it."

"Me, too!"

He thrusts a few times, enjoying it, making sure he's not going to go soft, and when he's feeling pretty sure that he's good to go, he puts her down and drops to his knees.

He unzips her boots and takes them off, sure he'll forget about them if he doesn't take care of them now, then tugs off her skirt and just looks. She's perfectly smooth and hairless, pink lips peeking out between soft white skin. "Ohhh..."

"You like that?"

Tim looks up at her, impossibly wide grin on his face, then kisses her mound, tongue tracing over skin that he'd never seen before. "That's at least a quarter of getting off in thirty seconds." He licks again, fingers following the path of his tongue. "So soft." His fingers slip down further, caressing over the now hairless outer lips, feeling her silky smooth and wet.

His tongue starts to follow. She pulls on his hair and he looks up at her again.

"You sure?"

That stops him. He's staring up at her, a very puzzled look on his face. Okay, yeah he doesn't particularly like going down on her when she's on her period, but she stopped menstruating when she went on Depo, so that shouldn't be an issue. "Why wouldn't I be?"

He watches her slip a finger between her lips, and if it was possible, that made him even harder, and come back wet with his cum.

"Oh." Hmmm... Yeah... That... Screw it, naked and impossibly soft and, God, _naked_ Abby pussy in front of his mouth. No way he's not going to kiss her. "You've swallowed enough of it over the last year. Doesn't seem to have done you any harm." And then he sucks her finger into his mouth.

She lets out a startled half-moan, half-laugh at that, and when he let go of her finger and began tonguing her clit that sound morphs into all moan.

It isn't like he's never tasted it before, though the lingering traces of it on her mouth after she's gone down on him is somewhat different from licking it off her skin. It isn't bad, didn't taste like much of anything really. Sure, he's not saying he wants to drink a glass of it or anything, but it isn't poison, either.

And there is something deliciously kinky about licking it off of her. About spreading her legs, seeing it dribble down her thigh, knowing it's his cum, on her, in her, and he's getting to lick it off. That hit a few buttons he didn't know he had.

There certainly is a thrill at how slippery and wet she is, how open and inviting, and how his fingers could just slide in, stroking her mercilessly, because by the time he had gotten them involved in the action he wanted to get her off as hard and fast as he could.

There were the sounds she was making. The sweetest, hottest music ever, dancing through his mind as he licks and strokes, feeling her get tighter and move faster against him.

Her hands clench in his hair, pulling him closer, letting her fuck his mouth, letting him feel how much she's missed this, wanted it, needed it.

Her thighs begin to tremble, and with a sharp, sudden spasm, he knows she's done. He holds her, tongue pressed gently against her, feeling her body shake, and grins.

He lets her come down for a minute, until most, but not all of the quivers had stopped, and then pulls back, standing up, kissing her, deeply. He thinks about her apartment and the furniture in the living room-kitchen area. The table isn't very stable. The sofa's too low for what he wants to do next. The kitchen counter on the other hand...

"See stars?" he asks.

"Yeah."

"More?"

She nods, smiles, and kisses him again.

He doesn't break the kiss, but begins to head them into the kitchen. She does break the kiss. "Kitchen?"

"Yeah."

"What are you thinking?"

"Putting you on the counter and fucking you blind."

Two steps later, they're in the kitchen and a second after that he does have her on the counter. And yeah, it's just about hip high on him, perfect.

He slips into her, fast, and slides back out, slow. She leans back on her elbows, legs wrapped around his hips, as he strokes her breasts through the tank top. It's almost perfect.

"Sit up."

She does, and he takes off the tank top.

"Perfect," he says kissing her shoulder.

"Perfect?"

He pulls back to look her in the eye. "God, yes, I can feel you and see you, and," he thrusts hard into her, "you feel so fucking amazing. Missed you, missed this, so much."

She arches up to meet his thrust, sighing as his hand slips down.

He's moving slowly, fingers teasing, cock stroking long and smooth. He's watching his body slip into hers, watching his fingers dance on her skin, and he loves the pictures, but seeing this live, feeling it, is so much better than any picture could ever be.

She pulls his head up to look in her eyes, and kisses him hard, tongue moving fast and frantic while his hips slow down even further. He's softly gliding against her, pulling out until only the tip of him is touching her, and then easing all the way back in.

Abby leans back on her elbows again, and he follows her, kissing and nipping at her nipples. Gently stroking with his tongue and then pulling with his teeth. She's rocking against him, eyes closed, mouth slightly open, breathing fast and hard.

"Wanna make you come slow."

"Oh."

"Just gonna keep doing this, nice and slow." His thumb is moving over her clit, firm, focused, but not fast, and his cock keeps easing in and out. His mouth moves back to hers, and with his free hand he pulls her up so they're chest to chest, lips to lips.

"I want you to feel every inch of me. Feel how hard you make me. Feel how much I want you. Feel how every single night I was dreaming of you. Dreaming of you wet and tight on me. Dreaming of your taste on my lips." He licks his lips, still able to taste her, and then kisses her, also wet and slow.

He can feel her body growing tight on his, and she's squirming, because in this position she can't really thrust or increase the speed. Though she can use her legs to pull him into her faster, and does.

"Slow, baby. Just let me do you." He strokes his right hand through her hair, knotting his fingers in it, holding her head still, and kisses her again, deep and soft. "Promise, I'll make it worth your while."

And if tied up and spun out is what gets him off harder than anything else, this is what does it for her. Long, slow, achingly slow strokes, the sort that take control and patience, and right now, he feels like he can do this all night. He can go as long as she might want him to.

So he does.

She falls back to her elbows, head back, mouth open as she moans a little with each breath. He shifts her left leg over his shoulder, so he can slide in a little deeper.

"Oh, God, Tim. Fuck baby." Her cheeks and chest are pink, nipples hard, face looking like she's somewhere between exquisite pleasure and sharp pain.

"Please!" Her hands and feet are clenched and he slows down a little more, thumb barely moving, more pressing against her than any sort of friction. He doesn't stop moving, but he goes so slowly she eventually starts to relax again.

She's moaning now, and it's not precisely a happy sound. It's more a I-was-a-second-from-climaxing-why-did-you-stop-this-is-torture sort of sound.

He's kissing her leg, right hand stroking her nipple, left starting to speed up again, going back to that slow, firm grind. "I've got you, Abby. Gonna make you come so hard it'll be worth a six day wait."

The last time he did this, the last time he had the control to do this, was after Palmer's wedding. He'd already gotten off three times and felt no sense of urgency, so he wanted to see what would happen if he just went slow on her. And she bit him black and blue and scratched his back bloody and came so hard she passed out.

And he can feel his own arousal building, so he knows he doesn't have the control to spin this out as long as he did then, but he can probably get pretty close.

He can feel her tense up again, and again he slows way down, barely moving, but keeping pressure on her clit and nipple. And if she wasn't supporting her weight on her elbows, he's fairly sure she would be clawing his back to ribbons, and he'd be enjoying every second of it.

And again she relaxes.

He starts to slide against her again, long slow strokes, all the way in and all the way out. She's moaning with every breath, and skin pink from her stomach to her forehead.

Her eyes are closed, so he watches himself fuck her. Watches her body, wet and glistening, take him in, and drag against his as he eases out.

He's starting to moan with each stroke, feeling his balls start to creep up and his thighs tense. He forces himself to keep going slow, he'll wreck it if he starts thrusting like crazy, so he keeps pulling all the way out, pushing all the way in, and rubbing his thumb in firm slow circles.

He changes the angle a little. Getting his knees into the motion. Pushing up as well as in.

"Fuck!" she more breathed it loudly than spoke. She pulls her head up, opens her eyes slowly, and stares at him.

That starts to undo him. She's so tight against him, and her eyes are glazed with lust, pupils wide with excitement. He eases back in again, getting that angle again, and begins to move his thumb just a hair faster.

"Don't stop!"

"Not this time."

He speeds up just a little, jaw clenched, shoulders and thighs and back tight, he probably looks like he's in pain, too, but it feels so mind-blowingly good.

She makes these little fast inhaling sounds, followed by a harsh shuddering breath. He flicks his thumb just a little faster and feels her go very tight, and then slip over the edge, her body rippling and twitching around him, moans verging on sobs slipping from her lips.

And that does it for him. This time is slow burn fireworks, blowing their way up his spine and down his legs, through his balls and centered on his cock, and this is the homecoming fuck he'd been dreaming about.

The bad thing about a mind-blowing fuck on the kitchen counter is you can't exactly collapse in a boneless heap with your lover.

He ended up on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinet the pots live in, her foot on his shoulder, his forehead and lips pressed against her calf, as they both just sort of laid around and rested.

Eventually she felt like moving and ended up on his lap. They sat there, snuggling, his fingers petting her hair, her head on his shoulder, neither of them talking, just enjoying touching.

And eventually, the kitchen floor is cold and hard, and the cabinet isn't very comfy, the handle poking him in the shoulder, and his feet are starting to fall asleep because she's sitting on his legs, so he says, "I should get a shower."

She sniffs him. "Not a bad idea."

He laughs, and she stands up.

A few minutes later they're in the shower, and he's groaning with pleasure again. "I love hot water! Oh...God. I don't know who invented the hot water heater, but he was a genius!"

"No stalls, no privacy, no hot water," Abby said, fingers on his hips, watching him throw his head back and let the water flow over him.

He wipes the water out of his face, and steps a little forward, so it's mostly hitting his back and shoulders. "Yeah, I don't recommend Afghanistan for vacationing. Dex and Gibbs had a much better time than I did."

"Dex got shot."

"Exactly."

She looks up at him, eyes narrowing a little, thinking. "You're bad luck for dogs. Jethro got shot. Dex got shot."

"Dogs are bad luck for me, too. And Jethro got shot because he was trying to rip my throat out." He touches the four tiny scars on his throat left over from their first meeting. "If he had played nice, I would have, too."

She shakes her head and reaches for the shampoo. "Turn around, I'll do your hair."

He does, and sighs happily as she starts to rub her fingers through his hair.

"What's the plan for tomorrow?" Abby asks.

"Back to work. Taking Dex home. Hopefully it's a paperwork day."

She nods at that.

"You?" he asks.

"Probably paperwork. Deposition at two."

They spent the next half-hour like that, talking, getting clean, Tim enjoying his first hot shower in a week.

* * *

They get out of the shower and dry off. He's getting ready to start shaving, but she stays his hand. "Tomorrow's soon enough. I like you stubbly like this, not really a beard, but long enough so it's not prickly. It feels nice."

He smiles and puts the razor down. It's been maybe three days since he shaved last. And yeah, it's a little itchy, but if she likes it, twelve more hours won't hurt.

In the bedroom, he slipped into a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt, enjoying how soft and comfy they are. Nothing about Afghanistan is soft, and he likes soft. She wraps up in her robe, it's long and black and silky, covered in white and pink cherry blossoms. He spends a long minute just watching her. Skin pink from the hot water, hair down, curling a little because she's towel dried it but not brushed it out yet.

He sits on their bed, relishing the easy intimacy of this moment, and the overwhelming comfort and rightness. Rule number eight: never take anything for granted. And right now, he isn't.

* * *

"Is there any food?" he asks, looking in the almost empty fridge. He's not feeling much interest in salad dressing, left over Caff-Pow, or turkey slices that are probably a few days past their prime.

"Ice cream," Abby says, opening the freezer, chin on his shoulder. "That's about it. It's lonely eating here without you, so I ate out."

He nods. Grocery shopping tomorrow. But for tonight, ice cream for dinner will do. It's Chocolate Moose Tracks, which is probably his second or third favorite, but since she doesn't much like his top two, (Coffee and Mint Chocolate Chip) and he's not huge fan of her favorite (Cherry Sorbet), it's what they usually get.

They settle onto the sofa, one container of ice cream, two spoons, and the remote. "Did you watch the Walking Dead while I was away?"

"I had to do something to pass the time."

"Was it good?" He's queuing it up on the DVR.

"So good."

"Okay, don't spoil for me."

She feeds him a bite of the ice cream, and then curls up against him as he wraps his arm around her. And that's how they ended the night, snuggled on the sofa, sharing ice cream, watching the Walking Dead.


	42. The Admiral

A/N: So, I liked Squall. But kind of like Hit and Run (which I also liked) cannon Tim and Abby aren't in the same place Shards Tim and Abby are. Sooo... I'm snagging some details from Squall, and ignoring others. (See post story note for more on that.) Anyway, this chapter might not precisely match up with what you saw on Tuesday night.

* * *

He guesses it was bound to happen sooner or later. For some bizarre reason Fate seems to enjoy tossing their dads at them, and since his dad actually is in the Navy, the odds were even higher than say two separate cases involving Tony's dad.

Doesn't mean he's happy about it.

Doesn't mean he couldn't have happily gone for the entire rest of his life without running into that man.

But it doesn't matter, because there's a job to do, and he's got to do it.

* * *

He stands in the doorway and watches Abby stab the dummy with a syringe over and over. Part of it is just for comfort, getting to watch someone who doesn't think he looks terrible, and won't make a snide shot about his love life. (He knows Penny told the Admiral about Abby, and he very clearly remembers being thirteen and his dad chewing him out about being fat and how he'd never keep a girl if he stayed that way.) Part of it is just liking to watch her work. She looks like she's enjoying this, but somewhat frustrated at the same time.

And part of it is wondering how much she knows about what happened today. He's guessing she already knows about the Admiral being on the ship, because if the look on Palmer's face when he realized what was going on was anything to go by, Jimmy had his phone out and was texting like mad the moment Ducky pulled the ME's van out of the parking lot at Norfolk.

She stabs the dummy again, and he's been lurking long enough. Time to get moving.

* * *

He and Abby don't argue. Not really, not about important things. Sure, fussing over what they'll watch on TV or what's for dinner happens, and she can get snappy and he gets sarcastic, but for big things, it just doesn't happen. They walk away, take the time to get themselves right, and then go back and talk.

And that works, for both of them.

Because they both need that quiet time in their own heads before they can let someone else in. And they both respect each other enough to let them have that quiet time.

So he walked out of the lab.

And it's not that she's entirely wrong. There are things he wants to say to the Admiral. But what she is wrong about is that it would make any difference. He doesn't need liberation; he cut himself free years ago; he needs acceptance and appreciation. His dad isn't going to give him what he wants, and since that isn't going to happen, spending more time yelling at him won't serve any purpose.

It's not that he needs to say the words, he has, and he backed them up with action. He needs his dad to hear them, and change because of them, and that just isn't going to happen.

* * *

Tim doesn't go straight home after work. For an hour he drives around, not really paying too much attention to where he's going, just letting the miles slide by.

This isn't just about him and his dad, it's also about Abby and hers.

And it's about empathy, and understanding the dad shaped hole in her life is a whole lot different than the dad shaped hole in his.

He gets to a stop light and fires off a text. _Are you at your place or mine?_

_Yours. You ready to talk?_

_Yeah. Home in twenty minutes._

_Have you eaten?_

_Not yet._

_I'll order something for us._

_Okay._

* * *

They eat first. Just getting it out of the way. Not really talking, a few words here and there on incidentals, like making sure the new place gets the deposit check, and how she has to remember to file her taxes this weekend, and that it's Easter on Sunday, and she'd like to go to Mass early. Little things like that.

And when the leftovers are packed up, and the silverware washed, he leads her to his bed, because this is a bed sort of conversation.

They don't undress. Maybe this is a naked sort of conversation, too, but right now he wants clothing, he wants an extra bit of a shield between him and these words.

He lays on his back, on his side of the bed, and pats hers. She follows him, laying on her side, head propped on her hand.

"Have at it," he says to her. 'Cause honestly, he's not sure he can start this one.

"He's your dad, Tim. You'll miss him, miss the chance to have had him in your life. I don't want you to regret this."

"He's not my dad. If I've got a dad, it's Gibbs or my grandfather. He's just the guy who got my mom pregnant."

"I think he did a bit more than that."

"I don't think shitting all over my life counts."

He stares at the ceiling for a moment, and then turns to her, looking into her eyes as his hand caresses over her stomach. "If you're going to do this, it should be important to you. It should be like breathing." He rolls her onto her back and kisses her stomach, and then looks up at her, resting his chin against her hip. "If you're going to make a baby with someone, that someone and that child should be the most important thing in your life. It should be your joy, and the reason you get up in the morning and the reason why you want to come home at night, and not just some massive disappointment.

"And as far back as I can remember I have been a disappointment to that man. As well as I can remember, my mom and I were never, ever important to him."

He's staring at her, eyes and voice earnest. "And I have been standing up to him my whole life. I didn't go to Annapolis. I'm not in the Navy. I'm a Federal Agent. I'm a best-selling author. I've hacked every secure system that matters. I've killed people to protect others, and I've put killers away, and when none of that made me good enough in his eyes, I shut him out because I don't need someone who will never approve of me in my life.

"I know you loved your dad. I know you still love him. I know you miss him, and I know you wanted more time with him. And I get how important he is for your life, but my dad is toxic, and I don't want him in mine."

She pets him and smiles, gently, at him. "Then why did you call him after you saw Penny?"

"How did you know I did that?"

"You were sad for days after, wouldn't talk about it. So I did some checking around, found an interesting phone number, and went with it."

"Oh."

He's quiet, not sure what to say, he's honestly not entirely sure what made him dial those numbers last year. She waits, gently petting his hair, letting him think about it.

"Hope. We hadn't talked for seven years. I'd gotten onto the best Major Case Response Team. On the job less than a year, and I was on Gibbs' team. I called to tell him, thinking maybe that might..." His voice trailed off, remembering that call. He'd been so proud, and the Admiral shot him down in less than three minutes. "But it didn't. He just got on me about wasting my time and potential. And that was it. I was done with him. But Penny said he loved me, though evidence for that is awfully thin on the ground, and I was hoping that maybe seven years gave him some perspective. Maybe being gone would have made him decide he wanted me around.

"It didn't. I crack a case that saves hundreds of thousands of lives, protect his mom, my grandmother, and he's still pissed I'm not in the Navy. Pissed I'm not the guy designing the sort of weapon we stopped.

"He doesn't love me. He's never loved me. He was in love with an idea of who I was supposed to be, and when I didn't want that role, he got my mom pregnant again, but Sarah was a girl, so obviously she couldn't do it, so he doubled down on me. And by seventeen I was done. I quite Junior ROTC, I turned down Annapolis and said yes to Johns Hopkins, and I left his home and never looked back.

"I've mastered more skills than most people dabble at. I've got credentials out the ears. I've excelled at everything I've put my will to. And eight years ago I figured out that he was never going to pet me for it. I picked NCIS for him, the CIA and FBI both gave me better deals. NCIS was an olive branch, a compromise, but it wasn't enough. Being the best at what I liked was never going to be good enough for him."

She strokes his cheek, and he closes his eyes, then scoots back up to lie face to face with her as she rolls back onto her side.

"I hate this. I'm thirty-five, but he shows up, and suddenly I'm fifteen again. I won't be the man he wants me to be, and I hate feeling how disappointed he is in me."

She drapes her leg over his, and kisses him. "He's a moron."

He looks at her, smiles a little, it's a depreciating look, not a happy one. "Be nice if he was. But he's not. He's smarter than I am, probably than Penny."

"Then he's an asshole, which is worse."

He shrugs. "That's true, but... well, just like your body needs one, the world seems to need assholes, too."

She laughs at that. "Yeah. I suppose it does. He's good at what he does?"

"They don't just hand out flag rank to anyone. So, yeah he's good at that. An appallingly bad husband and father, but he's good with a fleet of battleships."

She takes his hands in hers. "And you were supposed to be good with them, too?"

"Yeah. I'm supposed to have command of my own ship by now. I should have a XO asking me for orders. I should have an Annapolis ring, preferably one commemorating beating the crap out of Army in football." He holds up a hand that's completely ring free. "He didn't want a son; he wanted a clone." She kisses his hand.

"What would I want with a ship?"

"No idea."

"I'm the only Omega in a long and glorious line of Alphas."

"Penny's an Omega."

"I'm the only Omega male in a long and glorious line of Alpha males. Girls can be Omegas or Betas or whatever. He's fine with Sarah. She can be a writer. She gets a poem published in the school lit journal, and he's got it tacked onto the wall of his cabin. I'm a fucking New York Times best-selling author, three times over now, and I'm not living up to my potential." He shakes his head. "God, I hate this. See, fifteen all over again. He sticks around too much longer and my skin is going to start breaking out."

"It's okay."

"No, it's not. It's really not. It's just the way it is, and it's not changing."

"Would you want it to? Be the man he wants you to be, or make him the man you want him to be?"

"No on the first, definitely no on that. And sure, who doesn't want their parents to love them?"

"Penny says he loves you."

"Penny loves me. And Penny loves him. So I think she thinks he has to love me. But I don't think he does, and even if he did, what does it matter if he loves me, if he can't be in the same room with me without disappointment radiating out of every pore?" A short bitter laugh escapes his lips. "I'd rather he was just mildly fond of me, but proud of who I am. Like Gibbs those first few years, he didn't get me, at all, but he at least noticed I was useful. I'll take that over being a disappointment any day."

"Nothing about you is disappointing." He smiles a little at that as well, but it's still not a happy look. "And anyone who isn't full on insane knows that."

"And yet he is. My great grandfather was the first McGee at Annapolis, and that was a big deal then, because it was during the Irish Need Not Apply days, but his dad was hooked into the Boston political machine, so he got in. He was a sub commander in World War I, basically the most dangerous job in the Navy at the time. He never made admiral because the Germans blew him to pieces in 1918. But my dad has his medals, and there are a ton of them, on display in his office at home. My grandfather was a First Lieutenant, three years out of Annapolis when Japan hit Pearl Harbor. He was there, one of the first men to get to a gun and shoot back. His ship sank, but didn't roll over, so he kept firing until there were no more shells, water up to his knees. He finished the war a Captain, but that wasn't enough, so he became a naval aviator. Between World War II and Korea, he was one of the men learning what to do with aircraft carriers. Landing on them, designing them to work better. He was an admiral by the end of Viet Nam. And when he died, back in the '80s, all nine hundred of his metals and flag ended up in my dad's office, in a display case, next to my great-grandfather's.

"You ever see Ferris Bueller's Day Off?"

Abby nods.

"If I had had a Ferris in my life, I would have tossed those fucking medals off a cliff." Tim shakes his head, half-trying to imagine what his dad would have done if he had done that. He guesses the odds are fifty-fifty that he would have gone hot and beat the ever living shit out of him, or gone cold and tossed him out of the house.

"He loved the fact that I was good at math and computers. Had visions of me working on artillery or something, coming up with new and better ways for the Navy to kill people. He hated that I was so 'soft,' and decided it was his job to spend the parts of my childhood when he was home 'toughening' me up.

"The summer I was fourteen, he took me on a boat every single day. Trying to beat the seasickness out of me, like being seasick was something I was doing just to piss him off. Ten hours a day on the weekends. I lost something like thirty pounds that summer, I was so sick. I'd be throwing up, and he'd be drilling me on trajectory arcs. My mom put a stop to it in August when she was buying a second set of new, smaller clothing for me. Why would I even want someone who does things like that in my life?"

"I don't know. I'm sorry."

He tilts his head a little, lifting his eyebrows, his expression saying _nothing either of us can do about it._

"You know what really terrifies me?" he asks.

"What?"

"That he did it, and I'm going to have to testify against him. His lawyers will rip me apart, angry kid getting even with his dad. They'll rip you apart, fixing the forensics because you're my lover."

Abby looks deeply non-plussed by that idea. She has yet to meet a defense lawyer she couldn't chew up and spit out, so she takes the conversation in a slightly different direction.

"You think he did it?"

"Not really. I'm not feeling it."

"Good."

They lay there quietly for a few breaths. Her fingers trace down his arm, gently stroking his palm. She kissed him, and he sighed, enjoying the comfort of that touch.

"What was your dad like?"

She smiles, he's been gone long enough that she can enjoy the good memories without puddling up. "He was sweet and gentle. He'd put you in mind of Palmer a little. Curly, brown hair, sometimes inappropriate stories, glasses. He loved cars. They ran a car salvage/junkyard, and when something cool came in, he'd snag it and rebuild it. Deaf, so the house I grew up in was either really quiet, or very, very loud. Music and movies loud enough to feel them, that sort of thing. Or long conversations done entirely by hand." She signed at him for a few seconds, getting the point across. "He had a really expressive face. Lots of looks, like Gibbs. Both he and my mom could read lips and talk, but if it was just the two of them, they preferred to sign.

"I rebuilt the roadster, and the Harley, and he was the guy who taught me how to do that.

"I was a little girl in the south in the '70s so I was supposed to be pretty and polite and find myself a husband right out of high school, and he told me that was complete crap. His girl was going to college and making a life for herself. I didn't have to be a blonde debutante. I could be as weird as I wanted to, and he loved me for all of it."

Tim smiles at her. "That's the kind of man I am going to be for our kids."

"I know."

* * *

A/N: So, I write ahead. (Granted I couldn't do all of this one before I saw Squall, but got a good two thirds of it done ahead of time.) And at this point I've got more than 250 more pages of this story, and John McGee needs to be around for some of them. So... he's not dying in the Shardsverse. What was the actual case about? No idea, but not a dead doctor. Likewise, I need more of an edge from Shards John McGee, so he's considerably more of a bastard in my version.

I really enjoyed Tim and Adam together, but it doesn't fit in this story, so, alas, the absolutely brilliant "You work with Ziva? All day? Every day? Really?" scene that's been bopping around in my mind isn't getting into this. (Though it might end up being a stand alone at some point.)

This chapter also marks the end of me trying to base what I'm doing on the cannon. We're into all imagination land from here. Will I continue to incorporate stuff from the actual show? Oh yeah. Especially back story details, yes indeed. But I've got story to tell and I don't want to wait for each new eppy to update.

Happy reading everyone!


	43. Ziva

Pizza and laser tag just wasn't as much fun without Ziva.

They all wanted to make sure she had space and time to mourn. But it had been three months, and she kept saying she's fine, but she hasn't been coming to play, and they miss her. And even if they weren't dating, yet, it's not like Tim, Abby, Jimmy, or Breena couldn't see where this was going to go eventually.

So, it was fairly natural when four sets of eyes turned to Tony, after Abby asked him, "So, what is Ziva busy with?"

"I don't know," Tony answered.

"You don't know?" Jimmy asked.

"She's not talking to me about it. She's just busy."

"Do you have an idea?" Abby asked, taking a bite of her pizza.

Tony didn't answer for a moment. His expression looked guarded. "Yes."

Once again, four sets of eyes stared at him, so he kept talking. "She said she wanted revenge. She has not gotten revenge. I'm going to assume getting revenge is what's keeping her busy."

The four of them were quiet for a while, it's not like that idea is much of a surprise. Anyone who's even marginally familiar with Ziva can do that math.

No, what has them quiet is what to do with it. Finally Breena said, "You mean she's tracking down the man who killed her dad so she can kill him?"

Tony nodded.

"Then we should help." This time the four sets of eyes included Tony's and they were staring at Breena.

Tony looked like he was about to say something, then he didn't. He stared at Tim as well, who also looked like he was about to say something but couldn't make his mouth form the words. Because while it's true that, should the need arise they will help Ziva with something like this, they don't TALK about it.

Finally Abby said, "We should."

Jimmy stared at the girls, and then at Tim and Tony. He also seems to get the whole, for-God's-sake-we-don't-talk-about-things-like-this concept. He swallowed and said, "If we're going to talk about this, I'm thinking in public is a bad idea."

Tim nodded at him, really fast.

* * *

Tim and Abby drive back to Jimmy and Breena's. They don't live particularly close, but if anyone has a secure space to talk, their backyard is probably it.

On the ride, Tim thinks about something that's been hinted about, but he doesn't know for sure. He's fairly certain what the answer is, and he thinks Abby does know.

"Gibbs killed the man who killed Shannon and Kelly, right?"

She doesn't answer, but the expression on her face as she looks away from the traffic at him says it all.

"That's all I needed to know."

* * *

They get to the Palmers' place about twenty minutes later. Tony, Jimmy, and Breena are already on the back porch. Honestly, it's a bit cool to be out there, but unless someone has a directional mic on them, and that doesn't seem likely, it should be safe to talk.

For a long minute they all stare at each other, and then Tim says, "Just, for the record, we're cops, so we're not even supposed to be thinking about this, let alone talking about doing it."

"Tim, we're family, and if she needs help, we're gonna give it," Breena answered.

"I'm good with that. I went to Somalia to get her back; I'm in on this, too. I want you to know how serious this is. We"—He gestures to the four of them.—"are all officers of the court, so just talking about this can get us at least fired or tossed in jail. We have a legal obligation to not look the other way when we see someone breaking the law or planning to, and conspiring to murder someone is way off in break the law land.

"Assassinate," Tony says. "This is personal for us, but it's political as well. We do this, it's an assassination."

"Fine, still completely illegal," Tim replies. "Breena, you get caught talking about this, and almost nothing will happen to you. Jimmy gets caught, and he goes to jail. You two still think this is a good idea?"

Breena and Jimmy look at each other. "We're in."

"Great." says Tony dryly, and Tim can see him thinking that Jimmy and Breena aren't exactly the first people he'd call in for help killing someone. Though, as Tim's thinking about it, they're more or less the poster couple for good alibis, and that's always useful. And Breena has access to a funeral home with a crematorium, and that's probably better than an alibi. "But the thing is, I don't think Ziva wants help. She's not talking to me about it. She's telling everyone she's fine. Happy as happy can be. Frolicking about in meadows of pleasantly busy."

"Does she know that help, real help, is not only available, but on offer?" Abby asks.

"I've already offered."

"How did you offer?" Breena asks.

"I told her whatever she needed, I was in for. She told me she needed revenge, and then we didn't get Bodnar, so no revenge. She hasn't said anything about it, or anything along those lines, since."

"Which probably isn't a bad idea. You want to do something like this, and get away with it, not having anyone else helping is a good plan. Especially if you're Ziva. If anyone knows how to do this..." Abby says.

"Yeah, but she has to need some sort of help, right?" Breena says. "If nothing else, she's got to find this guy. And having someone cover those tracks," she's looking at Tim as she says this, "would be good."

"I'll check her computer, make sure anything she's got on it is clean and impossible for someone else to find."

Abby looks at Tony. "Gun or knife?"

"I don't know. Gun?"

"If she goes with a gun, I can make sure, that no matter what, it's never traced to her or the bullets."

"If we get his body, anything too incriminating will vanish," Palmer says.

Abby shakes her head. "No body. A guy as connected as Bodnar needs to just vanish. You and I'll make sure nothing of him is ever found."

Jimmy nods at that.

"Which leaves you with the hard work," Brenna says to Tony. "You're the one who gets to tell her we're here for her, and convince her that if she's going to do this, to not do it alone."

Tony stares at them and says one word, "Gibbs."

"If we do this, we'll bring him in. He'll understand," Abby says.

"Vance," Tim says it.

"Will want to help, too. Hell, that's probably her plan. Her and Vance. Two people, who are really good at what they do. She'll be the knife, and he'll provide the cover. Rule Number Four," Tony replies.

"Rule number four?" Breena asks.

"Best way to keep a secret, keep it to yourself. Second best way, tell one other person. There is no third best," Tim answers.

"So, should we be letting her keep her secret?" Jimmy asks.

Tony sighs, they're all looking at him again. "For now. I'll find out what's going on, and if need be, we'll back her up."

The others nod.

They're getting ready to go, when Tim decides that secret or not for right now, Ziva's not all that great with a computer. "Tony, would you give Abby a lift to my place?"

Both of them look at him.

"No matter what, if we actively help or ignore it and let her do it on her own, she needs someone covering her digital tracks. I've got to get into her computer. Depending on how she's looking, she might be letting Bodnar know she's on his trail."

"I'll come with you," Abby says to him.

"It'll look weird enough if I show up at work at 1:00 AM on a Saturday when we're off. You show up too and..." his words trail off. They could be going there because having sex at work is kinky and fun. Except he should get on Ziva's actual computer to do this, not the lab computers, and they'd be in the lab if they were going to do that. "Home. It'll work better if you're at home."

"You sure?" He can see she's thinking of the same cover he is.

"Yeah. I shouldn't do this from the lab."

"I fit under her desk."

Tony looks really bothered by that, while Tim says, "Even we don't play that far out of bounds."

Abby nods. Yeah, there's already enough scuttlebutt about the two of them without tossing extra gasoline on the fire. "Okay. I'll see you in a few hours?"

"I hope so." He kisses her, and turns towards his car. After two steps he stops and turns back to her.

"You know the burner phone I keep on my workbench?"

"Yeah."

"Go home, attack my work computer with it. Then kill it and get rid of it. That'll be my excuse for going in at one in the morning, making sure all of our computers are safe."

"On it, Boss." He smiles when she says that, and heads off.

* * *

One in the morning at NCIS is not nearly as deserted as he would have hoped. It's not that it's crowded, but there are people around.

He gets into the bullpen and turns everyone's computers on. If his computer got "hit," then he'd make sure everyone else on his team was secure, too.

He runs a fairly advanced sweep on all of their computers. Making sure everything is nice and tight. Abby had hit his computer with a pretty nice little worm. Enough that if it had come from someone else, it would have gotten his attention. Not so much as to get into anything interesting.

Then he sits down at Ziva's desk and gets to work.

She's leaving tracks like an elephant charging through a cornfield. It's not that she's particularly bad at this, it's just that there are so many people who are so much better at it.

It takes him close to three hours to get it all wrapped up and hidden.

He's standing up, stretching, turning off her computer, when he hears the elevator open. _Shit._

It's Vance. _Fuck!_

"McGee?"

"Director Vance."

"Working late?"

Lie or assume he's in on it? The knife and the shield. He can't quite read Vance's look, but he thinks Vance knows he's not here at four in the morning for kicks. "Security sweep, sir. Someone tried to hack my computer tonight, so I'm making sure we're all good."

"Uh huh." Vance does not appear to believe this, and he's wondering if he really is that bad of a liar. "And Agent David's computer was in need of extra security?"

"I worked on all of our computers."

"That doesn't answer my question, McGee."

He stares Vance right in the eyes and puts his trust in the idea that Vance is the shield for this op. "Yes. Badly."

Vance smiles, slightly. "Then I'm glad you were willing to come in on your off time to tend to it."

"Thank you."

"Are you done, McGee?"

"For now."

"Then I'll see you on Monday."

* * *

It wasn't until he was in his car, driving back to his place that he began to wonder why Vance would be in the office at 04:00 on Saturday.

* * *

A/N: So, I've been hearing the spoilers for the future NCIS eppies, and something about Tony being "shocked" by what Ziva's been up to. Now, unless Ziva's been engaging in meditation and yoga, trying to find her inner calm in order to be at peace with what happened to her Dad, Tony being shocked by what she's doing is going to be horrifically out of character. I'm really hoping they've got a twist coming up that I'm not anticipating, or that "shocked" is flat out wrong. Anyway, here's hoping this season wraps up well!


	44. And If We Can't Protect, We Avenge

Tony dropped Abby off at Tim's and then headed toward Ziva's place. He's not sure what to say to her when he gets there. Not entirely sure if he wants her to be there when he gets there.

He parks, sees her car, knows this has to be dealt with, and hopes she'll let him in enough to help.

He knocks on the door. It takes a few minutes but he hears her moving around in there.

She opens the door, in her bathrobe, and he can see pajama pants under it. She's looking sleepy and confused that he'd be there.

"Tony?"

"Can I come in?"

"Yes. What is going on?"

"Just wanted to see you." He flips on the TV and pops the first DVD he finds into the player. She's staring at him, wondering why he'd be doing this. He knows it's unlikely her place is bugged. But it's not impossible, and Bodnar is at least as good as she is at this kind of stuff, so he's not tipping his hand.

"You missed our date night," he says, turning up the volume while sitting on her sofa and patting the cushion next to him, hoping she'll sit down next to him and just talk.

"Do we have to do this at one in the morning?"

"Yes."

She sits down next to him, looking exasperated. "I'm fine, Tony."

"Are you?" His eyes are soft as he asks. "Fine Ziva hangs out with us and plays laser tag and kills Palmer nineteen times in the first twenty minutes. Fine Ziva eats pizza with us, and laughs when we make jokes, and rolls her eyes with me when McGee and Abby get too cute." He leans in close to her, lips an inch from her ear, voice very low. "And fine Ziva doesn't shut us out when she's planning on killing someone."

He can see her understand why he's got the movie on now, and why the volume is on high.

"Tony." Her voice is soft, and she's staring him in the eyes. He's not sure if that look is angry, sad, or pleased.

His hand finds hers, and squeezes gently. "You are not alone. No matter what you do about this, we've got you. McGee is taking care of your computer right now, making sure your tracks are covered properly. Abby and Palmer are ready to make sure that when you're done with Bodnar, no trace of him is ever found. Breena will give all of us an alibi and access to a crematorium if need be. And if you want, I will hold him down while you kill him."

"Tony, you can't..."

"I can, and I will. I meant it, whatever you need, I am here for. And if you want this to be just you and Vance, we'll do it that way, too. But we can't help if you won't talk to us. So, please, talk to me."

And she did.

* * *

When Tim got home, Abby was still up.

"All done?"

He looks at her curiously and mouths the word, "Bugs?"

She shakes her head, no. After attacking Tim's computer, checking to make sure his place was safe was the second thing she did.

"For now." He sat down on the bed next to her.

"You're good with this?" she asks, holding his hand in hers.

He nods. "Yeah. He hired someone to spray bullets into a residential neighborhood during dinnertime on a Friday night to try and stop a peace deal. He killed Mrs. Vance. It was only luck the kids weren't there. Only luck a stray bullet didn't hit someone else. And he was trying to start a war by doing it. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dead people if that had happened. We can't try him without an international incident, and possibly war breaking out. I'm fine with this."

"Okay."

"You?"

"Yeah. Look, I know Ziva's dad wasn't a saint. I know he screwed her over badly, more times and in more ways that we probably know about, and honestly, if it was just him, I wouldn't be fine with this, but Mrs. Vance... That's over the line. We protect our own, and if we can't protect them, we avenge them."

He nods at her.

"What'd you do?"

"Mostly just made it harder for anyone to see what she's doing. She won't tip him off if he's keeping watch on who is watching him. I didn't totally wipe her tracks clean. I'm thinking that when we catch him, she's going to keep looking for him, for at least a year, and periodically after that, that way if anyone better than me does get a hold of her computer, they'll see her hunt for him didn't stop when he vanished."

"Makes sense. Anyone gets a hold of her computer, they'll know you did it."

"Sure, but I don't think it'll matter. Hunting for him isn't illegal. She can claim she was working the case. I can claim I was helping. And, yeah, she's not supposed to be on that case, but I am, and as long as we're trying to bring him in, we're still on the right side of legal. And as long as she doesn't stop looking for him when he finally vanishes, that'll make it harder to pin killing him on us."

She nods at that. He gets up, gets ready for bed, and snuggles in next to her. And, while it's true that both of them understand the need for this, that on an intellectual level both of them know this is right, it's also true that both of them were still awake when the sun rose three hours later.

* * *

April 21, 2013 was the last time anyone saw Ilan Bodnar alive. He'd been in hiding for months at that point, but he came up on the facial recognition software on a traffic cam in DC.

April 22, 2013, a safehouse in DC, abandoned by Mossad in 2006 when it was compromised, burned to the ground. The official report showed that faulty wiring and years of neglect combined to cause the fire.

April 23, 2013 The Slater Funeral Home and Crematorium cremated one unrecorded customer, along with three bags of clothing, a tarp, a roll of duct tape, the carpet and upholstery of a van, and a knife.

No one ever asked any questions. And after it was done, no one at NCIS ever talked about it again.


	45. Moving Day

"Am I going to see anything I don't want to?" Tony asked as they packed up his stuff.

"As long as you don't open any of the boxes labeled Bedroom, no, you won't."

"Good." Tony's piling boxes onto a hand cart. That's the first, only time he's mentioned anything about Tim's sex life beyond a bit of light, generic teasing about some mornings being better than others, since January.

"Thanks for helping with this."

"No problem. I ever move; you'll be helping me lug, too."

"Yes. I will." Tim puts one of his boxes on a pallet. He's got it worked out so it should only take them one trip for the boxes and then three more trips for the furniture.

"It's a good day for it."

May 23rd, 2013 had dawned beautiful and promised to be warm and sunny. "Yeah. The new place has a patio, and we've already got a grill set up for the after party."

"So how is it Abby gets Ziva, Autopsy Gremlin, Mrs. Gremlin, and Gibbs to help her move, and it's just you and I over here?"

Tim shrugs. "She's got more stuff than I do? Does a better job of looking helpless? They like her better? No idea. But I'm glad you're here."

Tony puts a box that says Books on it onto his cart. "I thought you had more books."

"I only kept the ones I really love in hardback. All the rest are on my Kindle."

Tony nods. "So, three bedrooms, huh? You know what happens when you get three bedrooms."

It wasn't that they needed a three bedroom place. There had been some pretty nice two bedroom ones they'd thought seriously about. But, when it came down to it, he felt pretty weird having an office all to himself—which he needed, he's a lot happier writing alone, with his music, than with an audience, even if that audience is her—if she didn't have a space of her own, as well. And since they could afford three bedrooms, they got them.

Granted, they aren't entirely sure what she's going to do with her room. But, they'll figure that out as they go along.

"I don't trip over Abby's stuff, she doesn't trip over mine, and neither of us has to use earbuds to listen to our music."

Tony seemed to think that was a good answer, but it didn't exactly get to what he was fishing at so he kept talking. "That, too. But babies happen when you get an extra room. Well known fact, if you've got a space for them, next thing you know you end up with one to put in that space."

Tim smiles, loading up a box of clothing. "Wouldn't mind if it happens. But I think the plan is to get married, or at least get a house, before she gets pregnant."

"You're not freaked out at all about this, are you?"

"Nope."

"It's not if you get married, it's when." Tony shakes his head a little at that. "You and her and the rest of your life and kids and... nothing... not freaked at all..."

"No."

"Forever, really?" Tim's wondering what exactly is going on here, because the look on Tony's face isn't so much disbelief as trying to figure something out.

"Really."

"Seriously, a tiny person, entirely dependent on you for everything, and you aren't freaked?"

"She's not pregnant now, okay? And yeah, when it's real, I might get a bit freaked out by that, 'cause, yeah, tiny person entirely dependent on you is kind of scary, but right now, it's an idea, one I like. Abby pregnant with my kid, that's all kinds of good. A little girl with her smile and my eyes, I like that idea, too. Watching Gibbs with grandkids... Just take a moment and imagine that."

Tony laughs at that. "He'll turn into a puddle of goo or have them ready for the Marines by the age of seven."

"And possibly both."

Tony shakes his head again. "Gibbs making toys for your kid. Yeah, I can see that."

"Someone will have to teach them to sail." And then he looks at Tony for a long moment, "And how to dribble. I can't do that to save my life."

Tony looks very pleased by that, then looks away and grabs one more box. "I think this is ready to go."

Tim nods. "Yep. Service elevator is down the hall on the left." He tosses Tony a set of keys. "It's the Ryder truck right next to the loading bay."

* * *

"So, how did last night go?" Tim asks an hour later. They're disassembling his workbench, which is too big to get out of the door in one piece.

Yesterday had been Tony and Ziva's first official date. He had been expecting Tony to talk about nothing else today, he'd talked about the planning for it almost non-stop yesterday, and his silence on it seemed off. Tony's also not behaving with his usual, I-just-got-laid attitude, but Tim's well aware that there's a huge difference between 'laid' and 'just slept with the love of my life for the first time.'

Hunting Ilan broke the wall between Tony and Ziva; Tim could see that. But he could also see that while there was a new intimacy between them, (Of course, that was true for the rest of the group, too. You can't do something like that and not completely have each others' backs.) nothing romantic appeared to be happening until about two weeks ago when Tony started planning last night's date.

"Good."

He doesn't elaborate, which Tim takes to mean that things were either so incredible that Tony hasn't been able to get his head around it, or she slapped him silly and left before dessert.

"You got a Phillips head?" Tony asks.

Tim looks around on the floor—"Yeah"—and hands it over.

They continue disassembling. Tim waits. Tony will start talking about something soon. And if the date is still too personal to talk about, he's not gonna press.

"She slept over."

Tim nods, getting how big of a deal this is to Tony. "At your place, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"First time you've had someone do that?"

"Since Wendy."

"You like it?"

Tony nods. "I need a bigger bed."

Tim smiles, feeling really, really happy for Tony. "Good."

* * *

"So, this forever thing, what happens if it doesn't work?"

Tim looks confused at that as he puts his end of the dresser on the pallet. "What do you mean? Like, I get bored and leave? Not gonna happen."

"No." And then it hits Tim, and he feels intensely stupid for not putting this together sooner. Tony's mom died. The first woman Tony ever loved left him. Suddenly he gets something else, Wendy left Tony. He just knows that. Kate left him. Jeanne left. EJ just vanished one day. All the women Tony's ever really loved have left.

Tony's standing, forearms on the top of his dresser, leaning into it, not really looking at Tim. "She was sleeping next to me, spooned up close, 'cause there's not really enough room in my bed for any other position, and all I could think about was what the hell was I ever going to do with myself if something happens to her?" Tony's staring at the wall behind Tim. "Lonely might be better than this. I'm so scared of something happening to her. I don't know if I can even work with her anymore, 'cause if she's in danger, I'll do something stupid to try and help, put everyone at risk."

Tim doesn't know what to say to that. He awkwardly pats Tony on the shoulder.

"You know... Gibbs might be really good to talk to about this."

"Yeah." Tony shrugs. "Or he might tell me that that's a big part of why Rule Number 12 exists. That getting stupidly in love with Jenny made him decide dating his partner was a really bad idea."

"Maybe. But, the worst happened to him, and he's still here."

"Yeah. You ever wonder what he was like, you know, before?"

"Yes. Sometimes." Tim's going to assume that Tony only read the first Deep Six book all the way through because the final version of Black Rock had a really long Tibbs flashback which covered exactly what Tim thought Gibbs might have been like before.

"I don't think he's really still here. Sure, there's a guy named Gibbs, and he's got a lot of history with the guy he used to be, but I wonder if Shannon's husband and Kelly's dad crawled into the ground with them and never came out."

Tim shrugs at that. It certainly could be true. Though he thinks there's still a lot of the old Gibbs left, probably more of him each year as time goes by, but he doesn't know. None of them do.

"Maybe the next time Jackson is in town, you could talk to him."

"Yeah... Maybe." Tony shakes his head. "But it wouldn't help. It won't keep her safe." Tony sighs. "Come on, it's not gonna move itself... Tim?" Tony's staring right at him, making sure he knows that he's dead serious.

"Yeah?"

"When we're out there, if it's ever me or her, the right answer is her."

"I know, Tony."

* * *

Two hours later, they're doing the one last sweep through his apartment, making sure nothing's been left. It's as empty as it was the day, almost ten years ago now, when he moved in.

"I think you're set to go."

"Looks like it. Just gotta hand in my keys. Meet you at the truck?"

"Sure."

They've been on the road for about two minutes, pulling up to a light, when Tony says, very carefully not looking at Tim, "So, if I wanted to learn more about ropes and... things... What would you suggest?"

Tim almost rear ended the car in front of them he was so surprised by that. Once he had the van fully stopped he said, "Why do you want to learn?"

"I think Ziva's tastes might be broader than mine."

"Ahhh..." Tim smiles at that. "Okay. You already trust her with your life, so trust her with this, let her know you don't know everything, and just ask her what she likes. You'll have a much better time playing with her than you will trolling online."

"I keep hearing about this book that they're making into a movie soon—"

"NO! Do not go read Fifty Shades of Gray. It's not an instruction manual. It's not even particularly good smut. I can hook you up with better stuff than that if you want it, but not until after you talk to her and get something more specific than 'ropes and things' for what you might want to do."

Tony finally looks at Tim, curiosity in his eyes. "How do you know it isn't good smut?"

This was the part where Tim was not about to say that Palmer had given him a copy after Breena read it to him, and suggested he and Abby might enjoy it, as well. He and Abby had read it, and enjoyed it, but probably not the way Palmer and Breena had. They'd read chapters and ended up rolling around laughing so hard they couldn't breathe. "I read Tony."

"You're grinning."

"Abby and I read it, and that was fun, but the book's terrible."

Tony looks perplexed by this. "How can it be fun and terrible?"

Tim rolls his eyes a little. "It's supposed to be sexy, and we ended up laughing so hard we almost hurt ourselves."

"Oh."

"And it's bad. It's bad on a general level, and it's bad in specific for you because you aren't dating a 21-year-old-submissive who's never so much as touched herself, let alone kissed a guy. It's bad because if I understand you and Ziva right, you're not the dominant one." Tony looks bothered by that. Tim shakes his head. "Oh, come on, it's not like I've just met either of you. And I'm not saying she's a Dom and you're a sub, you're probably both switches, just she leans more Dom than you do."

Tony's just staring at Tim. He finally says, looking a little disturbed, "You really do read, don't you?"

"Oh yeah. Anyway, and more importantly for Fifty Shades, unless I'm really mistaken, neither of you gets off on pain."

Tony nods.

"So, anyway, bad book. Spanking and nipple clamps do not equal orgasms unless you're with someone who's wired that way. Hell, maybe Ziva is, I don't know, and I'm not ever going to know. But you're better off flat out asking her than just trying it one day with no warning." He thinks about that. "Okay, if you think she might like stuff like that, you could suggest reading it with her... But really, if you're gonna do that, tell me, and I'll find you something that's actually worth reading."

"Is a nipple clamp what I think it is?"

"Probably." Tim nods with a little smile on his face.

Tony winces. "Yuck."

Tim says, "Yep."

The light turns green and they continue toward his new place.

* * *

The new place is in Arlington. It's closer to work than either of their previous places, and should such days arise as they'd be reliably home by midnight, it's right near a Metro stop.

It is also on the third floor, and there is no elevator.

"Trust you to get a third floor walk-up." Tony says as he's helping Tim get his dresser up the stairs.

"Think of it this way, we kept Abby's sofa, not mine, so the five of them moved that."

"Good point. You kept her bed, too."

"Right. Palmer, Gibbs, Abby and Ziva got to lug that." Abby's bed is a huge four poster. It's beautiful, but, and this is Tim guessing facetiously here, weighs two thousand pounds. "Dressers, mirrors, two desks, a workbench, which is in pieces, a recliner, four book cases, and a ton of computer equipment and tools, and that's all of my stuff."

"So, you're saying we got off easy?"

"Let's put it this way, I'm working on convincing myself of that, and if I'm lucky, I'll get you to believe it, too."

They got up the second flight of stairs and started to hear familiar voices coming from an open door down the hall.

"So, you gonna kiss her?" Tim asks.

"Huh?"

"You know, when you walk in and see her for the first time since this morning. You gonna kiss her?"

That stops Tony. "Thanks, McGee, now I've got to think about that."

Tim grins. "I'm gonna kiss mine."

"You always kiss Abby. You're practically weasels in heat the way you two go at each other."

"Weasels in heat? You've been spending way too long with Ziva."

Tony's looking thoughtful. "Yes."

"Yes?" Tim didn't follow where that yes went in the conversation and looked alarmed. "No, not too much time with Ziva! More time with Ziva is the idea."

"No. Yes, I'm going to kiss her."

"Oh. Good."

* * *

By dinnertime, all of the furniture, boxes, and various home accoutrements had migrated from Abby's home and Tim's home into their home.

And, by dinnertime, a good third of them had found new homes. All of the furniture had been reassembled and put into place.

And, by dinnertime, no one wanted to do any more unpacking or moving, which meant it was time to fire up that grill, open some beer, and sit back and relax.

Gibbs took one look at Tim and the grill and shook his head. "You've got good steaks, McGee, let's not kill them." He started rearranging the charcoal into a tidy pile up against the one side of the grill. "Pile it up like this." He pointed to the deepest part. "This part'll be real hot. Steaks start off here, get a nice sear on 'em." He points to where the coals are only one deep. "Then they go here to finish off. Cook 'em gently."

"Thanks, Boss."

He's standing next to Gibbs, both of them on the patio, dousing the charcoal with lighter fluid, ("Not so much, McGee. No need to torch the place.) and watching Tony and Ziva tease each other.

"They look really happy," Tim says.

Gibbs nods.

"Is this cool?"

"Yeah."

"He's really scared."

"I know." Gibbs lights the coals and they burst into a huge ball of flame. He shoots Tim a _See, way too much lighter fluid_ look, and Tim nods.

"Less lighter fluid next time," Tim says, watching the flames dance.

"Good."

"Is she?"

Gibbs watches them. Ziva's sitting in Tony's lap on one of the kitchen table chairs. (They've only got four of them, and since Ducky's over now, they've got eight people in their place.) He's gently stroking the back of her neck with two fingers, and she's smiling as she talks to Abby, who's slicing up cucumbers for the salad.

"Not anymore."

* * *

It was so late that it counted as early when Tim collapsed into bed next to Abby. For a while they just lay there, neither of them moving or wanting to move. After their friends left, they spent the next four hours unboxing their stuff and finding new homes for it.

Then he rolled to his side and kissed her gently. "We're home."

She kissed back. "Yeah we are."


	46. Clubbing

"I was thinking," Palmer said as he put his beer down. They were wrapping up dinner and getting ready to head out for Laser Tag. "We're all couples now, so we could do something less platonic than laser tag. How about next time we go clubbing?"

Tim rose his eyebrows and smiled at Abby. They go out every month or so, and it's usually fun.

"I'm in," Abby said. "I'm thinking since Tony and Ziva just started dating, they should get to pick where we go."

Ziva nods, smile creeping over her face. "I know a place. Two weeks from today, we go dancing?"

Tony grins. "That'll be fun."

* * *

Aesthetics. Tim appreciates aesthetics. And while Tony might not agree, he has a very definite sense of style, as well. Not like the collars on his jackets pop themselves, and it's not like he does it because his neck gets cold.

It's true that the second thing he did when he got some money was get some really nice clothing. And while he's not a clothes horse, he is picky about what he wears. It's also true, that, after having spent close to two thousand dollars on a jacket to have it destroyed less than five hours after wearing it out for the first time, he doesn't wear his good clothing to work.

So, given the information that they were going to a club with an upscale casual dress code and the music is world hip hop, he's taking the time to come up with a decent outfit.

The jeans are Rock and Republic, light blue, intentionally worn looking, not frayed, the t-shirt is dark blue, slight v-neck, the jacket is leather, dark brown, almost black, Armani.

Abby's smiling at him, he can see her behind him in the mirror over his dresser as he slips on his watch.

He's thinking she's amused because it's taking him longer to get dressed than it took her.

Of course, she has it easy. For girls going clubbing is simple, find dress, put dress on, doesn't matter what sort of dress it is, any one will do, (Okay, no that's not literally true, but that's how it looks to him.) apply makeup and heels, and you're ready to go.

She's wearing this little black and pink thing. It's got a halter top, and a very low back, all of her back tattoos are visible, and a swingy, mid-thigh length, pleated skirt. When she's standing you just see a black dress, but the insides of the pleats are bright pink, so when she moves you catch flashes of pink.

Her hair is down and even curled a little, or waved. He's not sure where the line between curly and wavy is. It's whatever happens when she just lets it dry naturally without brushing it under the hairdryer. And whichever it is, he likes it.

He takes a moment to play with his hair a little. It's a slightly messier version of how he usually wears it.

She steps up behind him and turns him to face her. Then she presses up close for a long, open mouth kiss, running her fingers through his hair, rubbing up against him in a manner that's making him think being late for dinner is a particularly good idea. After a minute, she pulls back, grins, and says, "I think that's the look you were going for."

He looks at himself again and adjusts his pants. "Ruffled hair, half-hard, thinking about sex. Not a bad look for me."

She giggles and puts on a pair of knee-high black patent leather boots. "Not a bad look at all."

* * *

They met for dinner first. Palmer and Breena were already at the restaurant when they got there, but no sign of Ziva and Tony.

They've been there just long enough for him to give Breena a hello hug, when Ziva and Tony show up. Tim stares at the three couples, and yeah, style.

They might be best friends, but there are some seriously different aesthetics going on here.

He looks at Palmer: brown suit, British librarian cut, red striped shirt, maroon bow tie, then points to himself. "Nine." He points to Tony: navy suit, sharp cut, white shirt, blue tie, red pinstripe. "Ten." And then points to Palmer. "Eleven."

Tony looks confused, Abby's smiling, Breena seems to get it, and Ziva looks intrigued.

Palmer grins. "You think you're Nine?"

"I'm the one in the jeans, leather jacket, and t-shirt."

"I suppose so. But really, Eleven? I don't look anything like Matt Smith."

"The suit." Tim stares at Jimmy's tie. "The bowtie?"

"Speaking of which..." Ziva pulls it off of Jimmy and hands it to Breena. "Not for where we're going."

"Oh." Jimmy undoes the top button of his shirt. "Okay. Still, when it comes down to it, I'm Four."

"I can see that," Abby says.

"Are you guys done with whatever massive geekery this is?"

"Sure, Tony," Tim answers.

Breena says to Tony, "You just got compared to David Tennant."

"Who?" Tony asks.

Tim's mildly surprised that Tony doesn't know who David Tennant is, but then again, he hasn't been in any of the sorts of movies Tony likes.

"Exactly," Abby replies, grinning widely. "So, if you're Nine, he's Ten, and Jimmy's Eleven, which ones of the Companions are we?"

"I'm Rose," Breena says. Beyond the blond hair, Tim's not seeing that at all. He can't imagine Rose in cute, knee brushing, spaghetti strap dress in a fawn colored brown with tiny pink roses all over it. Ziva in tight gray pants, he's not sure if they're denim or suede and isn't about to get close enough to find out, and a sort of swoopy-necked, spaghetti-strapped, tank-top looking-thing with little sparkles all over the neck line puts him more in mind of Rose.

And, while he might not see the resemblance, he does know what to do with it. He holds out his hand to her, smiles, and says, "If you want to see the universe, come with me."

Breena laughs, takes his hand, and lets him kiss her cheek before stepping back to Jimmy.

Jimmy, not to be outdone, says to Abby, "Amy?"

And she steps in close and lets Jimmy kiss her cheek as well.

Tony groans. "What is this, the mating dance of the geeks?"

The hostess turned to them and let them know their table was ready. "Thank God!" Tony says.

By the time they had gotten through the appetizers it was likely Ziva had been convinced to start watching Dr. Who. Tony, though regaled with the joy that is Dr. Who was entirely unmoved by the idea of watching it.

* * *

One of the side effects of dating Abby is that he's gone from being a competent dancer to a fairly decent one. And not just for the bits of music that are inside his comfort zone. They go out clubbing about once a month. Not too much dancing at the Jazz clubs he likes, they're more of a sit, listen, and drink sort of space, but the Goth/Industrial ones she likes are the sorts of places they expect you to dance.

So, with practice, and with getting used to not just how she moves, but how the music moves her, he's getting better at dancing, especially with her, and his range of moves is increasing dramatically.

Of course, there's better at dancing, and then there's being dropped in a World Hip Hop/Techno club, the kind of music Ziva likes.

A few thoughts occur to him as they're walking in. First off, there's eighteen years age difference between Breena and Tony, fifteen between Ziva and Tony.

Ziva and Breena are awfully comfortable here. This might not exactly be Breena's favorite kind of music, but it's close enough to her idea of go out and party that she's fine.

He and Palmer are about five years too old for this. December 14, 1977 was a big day for both of them. (He's four hours older than Palmer.) So for them grunge and raves is part of whatever miniscule bits of party culture they picked up.

Abby... well, she's been at this a long time, and didn't stop, so she's got a wide and well-varied level of experience. And sure, she's a lot more Goth than anyone else around, but she gets the music pretty easy. The instruments are different, the lyrics are...well... actually Tim has no idea what the lyrics are. They could be as dark as what Abby likes, but since they aren't in English, he doesn't know. They sound perkier though. The music however, has a similar sort of feel, all beat, lots of percussion, this is grab you by the heart and hips and make you move music.

Like Abby, Tony's prime party days lasted a pretty long time, but he's got the whole frat party vibe thing going on, where the only reason there is music is to get the girls to rub up against you. And this is very much not a frat party.

Tim's getting the sense that if they get to pick the club again, Tony's going to insist on somewhere swanky and cocktail lounge-y.

The other thought that occurs to him as they walk in is that there are about nine thousand twenty-something guys here, all but drooling over his girl, and he's not about to be out-danced by any of them.

* * *

"How's the ring hunt?" Jimmy asks as he and Tim bring drinks back to their table.

"Nothing yet. Still looking."

"Promise me, if you haven't found anything by Fourth of July, you'll talk to a jeweler?"

"Why are you so interested in me doing this fast?"

"You have a fascinating definition of fast, Tim. It's June, you've been ring hunting for four months without finding anything."

"Not answering my question."

Jimmy shrugs a little, causing a bit of Breena's drink to slosh over the side of the glass. "Because if you two are engaged before Labor Day, I win the pool."

"Who's in the pool?" Tim's a little surprised he hasn't heard about this before now.

"Who isn't? Gibbs had money on before Memorial Day. Ducky has Christmas."

"Who's got money on Halloween?"

"Last I checked, no one."

"Idiots. Place a bet for me?"

Jimmy glares a little at him, but it's a mostly joking look. "I am not placing a bet for you on when you get engaged, and I'm sure as hell not doing it so that if you win, I lose."

"When does Tony have?"

"Fourth of July."

"Ziva?"

"She had Abby's birthday."

"What's the pool up to?"

"Fifteen hundred dollars."

"I expect a killer wedding present from you."

Jimmy grins. "Any day between July 5th and Labor Day and you'll get one."

* * *

He was dancing with Abby, close and fast, and it didn't take him long to notice she was edging them further and further away from the crowd.

By the end of the song, they were against the far wall. She took his hand and led him towards the back of the club.

"I noticed something when I went to the bathroom."

"What?" Tim asks, letting go of her hand to put his arm around her shoulders.

"There's this nice, little," and she nudged him behind a tall stack of liquor boxes, "alcove here."

It was definitely tight quarters, barely enough room for both of them. And, unlike the clubs she likes, this doesn't seem to be the sort of place where people run off and have sex in the back. (The fact that there's no one back there already would seem to indicate that.) Which means this was all sorts of right up his alley.

He's a little drunk, so they're not going to set any speed records, but she's usually pretty happy for that.

He presses her against the wall, facing it. It's a pretty nice wall for the back of a club, no graffiti or cum stains. (It occurs to him the kind of places he goes to with her are a lot different than the kind of places Tony and Ziva go.) For a moment he just looks at her.

All of her back tattoos are visible, and he's going to kiss each and every single one.

His hand traces over her hair, knotting in it, lifting it, and then he places a soft, wet kiss on the nape of her neck, just above the top of her dress. He kisses down her neck, over to her shoulder, getting the first angel, then to the other, and she sighs, and presses back into him, squirming encouragingly.

He licks to the top of the cross, and drags his tongue over the lines, tracing it into her skin, stopping to nibble gently when he gets to the base of it, then slowly eases his way back up to press tight into her back.

His fingers trail down her arms, settle onto her hips, and he grinds against her.

He's inching her skirt up as he asks, breath hot on her ear, tongue teasing her neck between words, "What do you want?"

Her eyes close and she sighs again. His hands, now touching skin, go still on her hips, waiting for her to answer him.

She turns to look over her shoulder, and kisses him, tongue soft and wet, sliding against his. She broke the kiss when she felt him go hard against her ass.

Her hands snake between them, undoing his belt, starting on the button while she says, "One hand on my clit, the other on my nipple, while you fuck me from behind."

"Yes." He bites very gently on her shoulder while she finishes with his pants. He uses his foot to nudge her legs a little further apart, giving him better access.

His left hand pulls her panties to the side, holds them there, and starts on her clit while his dick just slides between her lips for a few strokes. His right hand slips under her top, finding her breast and nipple easily.

She reaches down, gives him some help with the angle, and he slides in deep and sweet, gently swearing against her neck as her body slipped wet and tight against his.

It's true that a little drunk slows him down, but it speeds her up, so it's not long before she's got her hands clutched into the hair at the nape of his neck, shuddering against him. He doesn't stop while she gets off, just slows down, face pressed into her shoulder while he continues to pet her.

When her body stops twitching, he stops, too, pulling out. "Turn around. Wanna see you, wanna kiss you, want you to see me come."

She does, grinning at him.

They're rocking against each other, enjoying it, this is good music to fuck too, nice, steady beat for it, and it's certainly not slow, but it's not too fast, either. Her eyes were on his, lips and tongues encouraging each other toward more pleasure, when her eyes slid to the left.

She's not looking at him anymore. She's looking over his shoulder. He stops kissing, stops moving, wondering if they're about to get tossed out of the club, really hoping they aren't about to get arrested.

"Hi Jimmy, Breena."

His head falls to her shoulder, and he starts to laugh. Of course Jimmy would home in on this, too.

He can hear the smile in Abby's voice. "Give us..."

He realizes she's expecting him to provide a time frame.

"Five minutes," he says, kissing her shoulder, very much not turning to look behind him.

"Fine," Breena chirps, also laughing. He feels a small hand gently pat him on the ass, and then hears, "Have fun."

He looks at Abby, eyes wide, giggling with amazement. "Did that just happen?"

She smiles at him, "Yeah I think so."

"She gets really flirty when she drinks."

"She hasn't been drinking, Tim."

"Huh."

"Five minutes?" she asks him, redirecting the conversation. "You that close?"

"I was before they walked up."

"Five minutes it is, then."

* * *

Four and a half minutes later, they were dancing again. And they didn't see Jimmy and Breena for close to an hour. Which suited Tim just fine. He knows that if he sees Palmer he'll burst out laughing hysterically, and he's not sure he wants to explain this joke to Tony.

Okay, dancing with Abby against his front and Ziva at his back was a kick. He's thinking he could get used to the idea that they do this on a somewhat regular basis.

He's also happily imagining what would happen if they were to take the other four to the kind of clubs Abby likes.

Breena'd go for it in a heartbeat, and Jimmy probably would too. Ziva... He's imagining her Gothed out, and likes the image. Tony... that brings a smile to his face.

Yes, going dancing is a good idea.

* * *

And even with an hour, when Jimmy did come to sit next to him at their table, (the girls were dancing with Tony) his hair a little messed up and his shirt not quite as well tucked in as it had been before, Tim did burst into hysterical laughter.

Jimmy held his face straight for, oh, nine maybe ten seconds, and then joined him.

Finally he said, "Think Tony got laid?"

Tim watched him dancing with the girls. "Nope. He'd be a lot less keyed up if he had gotten laid."

Palmer smirked. "Hard to do when your girl is wearing pants."

"Hard to do some things if she's wearing pants. Not so hard to do others."

And then they both broke into giggles.

* * *

The music slowed down a little, and both he and Jimmy got up to join their girls, and then stopped, and sat back down again, quickly.

Ziva and Tony had paired off for the slower music, and so had Abby and Breena.

Abby had pulled Breena close to her, one hand on Breena's waist, the other on her shoulder. Breena's head was on Abby's shoulder, her hands on Abby's waist. And mostly it was just cute, the two of them swaying with each other. There was nothing overtly sexual about it.

At least, there was nothing overtly sexual about the way they were dancing with each other. The way Tim and Jimmy responded to watching them snuggled in close and swaying with each other was entirely sexual.

"Oh God," Jimmy whispered it, eyes wide, gaze riveted to the girls.

Tim exhaled a long breath, also incapable of pulling his eyes away.

Abby turned them so both of the guys could see her back, and Breena's fingers just teasing the skin of her low back below the hem of her dress.

"I think they're making sure we'll be up for another round," Tim said.

Jimmy shot back the rest of his drink. "I sure as hell am."

Abby slid her hand slowly down Breena's arm, stroking her fingers between Breena's, and Tim groaned quietly.

He stood up, and Jimmy grabbed his arm, yanking him back down into the booth. "No. You do not cut in on them!"

"But..." That sounded significantly more needy and less manly than Tim might have liked, but in a second Jimmy was in exactly the same sort of Oh-My-God-We-Talked-About-This-Hottest-Thing-I've- Ever-Seen boat as Breena slid her foot along Abby's leather boot clad calf, mesmerizing both of the guys with the sight of her small, shapely foot in a cute tan and white high-heeled sandal against the sleek black leather of Abby's boot.

"I don't care how badly you want to touch her. You do not stop this!" Jimmy wasn't sounding particularly in control as he said that.

So Tim sat and watched.

There was no kissing. No really obvious petting. No making out. Just four minutes of the two of them dancing, chest to chest, and occasionally touching in a way they knew would drive the guys crazy. It took Tim a minute to figure out that if the arm petting on Abby's part was deliberate, that Breena's foot lazily sliding up and down Abby's boot had to be as well.

When the song ended, the girls went to them, both grinning madly. As soon as they got near the booth, Jimmy tossed a hundred on the table, grabbed Breena, kissed the ever living daylights out of her, bending her back as he pulled her flush to him, his lips almost attacking hers, for a very long minute, and then headed off.

Tim sat in the booth, Abby on his lap, her fingers lazily stroking his skin below the collar of his jacket as the two of them watched Jimmy and Breena kiss.

And, okay, Jimmy still wasn't going to be showing up in any of his fantasies about Breena, but he certainly had not minded seeing that at all.

Abby kissed his ear, lips wet and soft, sucking gently. "You like that?"

He inhaled shakily. "Fuck, yes."

"Home or here again?"

"Neither of us should drive, and I want way more time than we can get here. There's a hotel three blocks down."

"Good."

Abby stood up, and he tossed his own bills on the table, more than ready to go somewhere private.


	47. Ropes

Lazy Saturday at home when they aren't on call. The kind of day where they can take the time to really play with each other. Tim's favorite sort of day.

They'd slept in, laid around, he'd gotten some good writing done, and she'd gone to see Kayla Vance, school was out, but they still kept seeing each other for a few hours every week.

After that, dinner at home, a little TV, and then bedtime, early bedtime. (Okay, obscenely early bedtime, it was seven thirty.)

The rope had started at the upper left post on the bed. It was black, silk, the sort of thing used to tie up baroque curtains. (McGee had found it at a decorator's supply store. They'd been looking for fabric for curtains, didn't find any they liked, but did end up with a supply of new ropes in a lot of interesting colors.) It's one end was tied firmly and allowed to dangle into a soft and shiny tassel. From there it looped around McGee's left wrist, also tied firmly, and he grasped the few inches of slack rope between the bed post and his hand. It spiraled down his arm, around his chest and stomach, snaking from the small of his back to his right leg, spiraling from there down to yet another secure knot around his ankle, and one last knot tying that ankle to the lower left bedpost.

He's waiting. Abby tied him up, and left. She's been gone about fifteen minutes, so probably getting into costume, or maybe just making him sweat a little, possibly both.

Doesn't matter, he's comfortable, eager, and feeling good.

His right hand is free, so he's slowly stroking himself. Not trying to get off or anything, just keeping his interest level high.

She comes back, and he smiles at her. She's in heels, stockings, a black silk corset, and a lace choker. Her hair's back in a bun, and she's got her eyes painted black and smoked out.

She's not smiling. She reaches down and slaps his hand, hard. "Bad, McGee. I want your dick touched, I'll do it myself."

A second later his right hand is handcuffed to the right bed post, and he's stretched out as far as he goes. This is less comfortable, quite a bit more exposed, and he really likes it, and hopes she'll take pictures. He can see the dichotomy of the silk and the cuffs in his mind, but because of his position on the bed he can only see one arm at a time, and he'd like to see the whole thing laid out at once.

She kneels between his legs, one hand on each of his hips, and slowly, delicately, the flat of her tongue flush on the inside of his leg, licks from the crease of his knee to his left testicle.

His eyes close and a long slow breath escapes. She's mouthing it, rubbing her lips and tongue over it, and then takes it in her mouth to suck gently. He's trying to thrust, but can't really, not with the way she's pinning his hips.

So he's squirming in a very pleased sort of way, watching her through heavily lidded eyes, tingling all over from the pleasure, and she pulls back, grinning. Her fingers rest lightly on his hipbones.

"I want your hips to stay still."

His hips go still.

She stands up and fetches a pillow and the bottle of lube. Placing them next to his hips. Oh yeah, he knows where this is going and his dick twitches in anticipation, looking forward to her wet, soft mouth on it.

She doesn't get back on the bed. Instead she walks around it to her side, and her nightstand. He knows what lives in there, and his eyes light up even further. She gets one of the vibrators. It's a small, fairly slim one, so, oh yeah, she's going to use it on him.

Vibrator, lube, pillow under his hips. Just thinking about that is making him even harder.

"Hips up."

He complies and she tucks the pillow, folded in half, under him. Then she trails her fingers down his left leg, nails scraping gently, tickling his foot.

"Can you keep this leg still?"

He thinks about it. If she wants his hips still, he'll have a much easier time of that with both legs tied. But if part of this is about the challenge of it, then keeping it free ramps that up further.

"Is the vibrator going to go in me or on me?"

"Both."

His mouth goes dry at that, and he swallows hard. That's something they don't do all that often, but when she does do it to him, it gets him off so hard his whole body shakes for minutes after. "Probably not."

Abby kisses his ankle and smiles at him quickly, and then fetches another rope to tie his left leg down. When she finishes he tugs a little at the binding, and it's good and secure. He's not going anywhere.

She climbs onto the bed, looking sleek and dangerous, perfect in gothic black. For a moment she just kneels there, between his legs, letting him look at her, corset tight, breasts high and round, legs in silk stockings and no panties.

He wants to talk, but she hasn't said he can, so he just looks, and hopes his eyes get how much he's enjoying this across.

Then she shimmies up his body, stroking his legs, hips, thighs, testicles, skipping over his dick, to rub his stomach and chest. She licks his neck, nibbles his ear, and says, "I don't remember saying that you were allowed to start without me."

True enough. She also hadn't said he couldn't either. But, moot point. This is all part of the game, and he's eager to play.

She rises up on her knees, balancing her weight on one leg while the other straddles his neck and hooks under his shoulder and arm. Her weight shifts, settling her pussy inches from his mouth.

He wants to lick, wants to suck, wants to revel in her taste, but she hasn't told him to yet, so he holds still. He inhales deeply, enjoying her scent, and keeps his eyes open so he can look. Nothing on earth more beautiful than Abby's pussy. Nothing.

"Like what you see?"

"Love it."

"Want to taste?"

"Yes. Please."

She lowers herself, just brushing against his lips, teasing him with her body and her control. He doesn't move, because she hasn't told him to, yet, but he wants to.

"You may kiss me."

_Thank you. _And he does, lips stroking along her skin, tongue skimming wet flesh. She's rolling gently against him, a slow easy stroke that he's got no problem keeping up with. He matches his speed to her hips, taking his cues from how her body moves, and wishes he had at least one hand free so he could add his fingers to the mix.

But he can't, so he doesn't. He rolls her clit with his tongue, keeping up a steady pressure and speed, letting her set the pace.

She's moaning, rich, easy sounds, almost lazy, definitely not sated.

She leans back, grabs the vibrator, and begins to use it on herself while he licks. Using it the way he'd use his fingers, adding some slide, some stretch, a little pressure to the g-spot. She doesn't turn it on, which he appreciates because having his tongue buzzing would be distracting.

Her eyes drift shut, and she plays with one nipple while stroking herself, and he licks, pressing harder, keeping up as her hips roll faster. Her breath, moans, pitch all increase, and he enjoys it, feeling her get wetter, move faster, more turned on against his mouth, making him harder, making him want to thrust along, though he doesn't. He keeps his hips still, and refocuses on his lips and tongue, on getting her off hard and fast and pleasing his lady.

She's moving faster, jerking, less coordinated, and he's having a harder time keeping his tongue where it belongs. But he does, or well enough she doesn't complain, and in a minute he hears her switch from moans to a soft, Ohhh sound, one he knows means her orgasm is seconds away.

And then her body is rippling against his tongue as her thighs twitch. He stops licking and just presses his tongue to her, holding still, knowing how sensitive her clit is right after she gets off.

She rests for a few seconds, and then shifts off of him, leaning down, kissing him, licking his lips, tasting herself, and then passing that taste back to him. "Thank you. That took the edge off nicely. Now, McGee, what to do for you..."

She kneels between his legs and starts by just tracing her fingers up his inner thighs. He wants to sigh. What she's doing feels nice, but he still hasn't been given permission to make noise, so he stays quiet.

She starts to lick, soft, wet, hot, up his left thigh. And he wants to move. He wants to sort of roll his hips, nudge her just a bit to... _Oh, yeah, there._ She's cupped his balls and pulled them a bit to the side, tonguing the crease where his leg meets his body.

He wants to thrust, to press up against her, just get a little more pressure and maybe, if he could get her just an inch over, because, right there, under his balls, _oh god, yeah, that's just God please Abby just right there!_

It's the most perfect frustration ever. That whole area is exquisitely sensitive, but it's not his dick. He wants to ripple and roll against her, pull her mouth onto him, fuck her frantically, thrusting hard and fast. And he can't. He's keeping his hips still as she laps at his perineum and strokes his balls.

"Talk to me; tell me how you feel."

"If you don't fuck me, I'm going to die!" Okay, he's not quite there, yet, but part of the fun of the game is being able to say whatever he wants. And he wants to say things like that, wants to put himself entirely in her hands.

"Not yet, baby, not yet." Her hands stroke over his hips and thighs. "You can take more of this. In fact..." He hears the click of the lube bottle opening, and knows what's coming next.

"Oh, God, please, yes." That might do it. He figured out years ago, after a lot of reading, that exploring certain less easily accessible areas of his anatomy might result in very good things. And result in good things it did. What he doesn't know is if he can get off from prostate stimulation alone. He's never tried.

But right now, as she's gently slicking him up, and slowly stretching him out, he's really hoping it can, because if he doesn't get off soon, he's going to go mad.

He doesn't love this part of it. He's tight, that's just how he's built, so loosening up isn't something that comes naturally, but what comes next, that's worth it, well, well worth it.

And, God, her tongue, lapping gently on his balls, making them try to crawl into his body, making him want to come so hard, and her fingers, gently easing the way, slipping and sliding into him, making sure this won't hurt, he was so ready when he felt the cool plastic of the vibrator slip into him.

She sort of swirls it, angling up and gently pressing. His head is back, and he yells, "Fuck! Oh God, please, fuck!" He can feel it all the way from the base of his spine to his balls and down both his legs.

"Abby!"

"You're okay. I'm gonna take care of you."

And, oh God, he's never ever been this turned on and not come.

Her tongue is fast. The vibrator is slow. Slowly easing in and out, slowly buzzing in him. Slowly, or maybe not too slowly, driving him into a wet puddle of insane lust.

He realizes he can't get off if no one is touching his dick. He suddenly knows this for a fact. She can spin him out as long as she wants, keeping him just on the verge of getting off, but as long as she doesn't touch him there, there's no shot of accidentally getting him off.

"Oh, God, Abby, you're killing me."

She held her hand just above his dick, and he can feel the heat of her palm. _Don't move your hips_. And he doesn't, but he's certainly trying to see if he can get that little muscle at the base of his pelvis to twitch hard enough to at least brush against her palm.

"That's the idea, McGee."

He twitches and almost touches her. She shakes her head. "Bad, bad, Timmy. Nobody's touching your dick anytime soon, I'm afraid." She leans over and blows on it. Hot, moist air, making his hands and feet clench.

Oh, God, that was almost enough. "Please, do that again."

"No. Just trust me; I won't push you further than you can go. But you can go for a good long time." She twists the vibrator, upping the speed, runs slick fingers over his perineum, and goes back to sucking his balls. He wants to buck up at her, thrust into anything, hell the air, just move, just feel, just make that little wand move faster or harder, or just a little more something, anything to get him off.

"Please, Abby, please, please. Just touch it, just a little, please, baby."

Tim is an excellent submissive, especially for someone who isn't one by nature. Some people need to have someone else take charge, make all the decisions, control the encounter, and take care of them. But Tim doesn't need that, he just likes it. He loves laying back and letting Abby take charge. Putting his pleasure entirely in her hands is a treat. But, he also likes being the one in charge, and if anything, he actually leans more to the dominant side than the submissive one.

So, the fact that, as of this point he has never, ever broken a command is something he's proud of. If this was baseball and he was a pitcher, he'd have a perfect no hit career.

But right now all he can think about is how, if he could just move his hips a little, if he could just possibly thrust just the tiniest bit, he could maybe rub up against her nose or hair or something and just please, God, please, get off.

He's pulling hard on the ropes and the cuff, trying to divert that desire to thrust to his arms, yanking on the bed, anything to try and hold his control as she swirls her tongue around him and turns the speed on the vibrator up even faster.

"God, baby, you're really going to kill me. Just please, touch it, just a little, please."

"Oh, I think you can take a little more."

"Noooo..." he moans.

Abby stops. That sounded enough like real pain that she's worried. She scoots up, takes his face in her hands, and says, "You still remember your safeword?"

He nods. He doesn't smile, can't quite smile right now because, God, he wants to come, and that's pretty much shot his ability to reassure her to hell and gone. But he's still got his safeword in his mind, and he knows he can stop this anytime. Just say her name and it'll be done. But he won't. He can do this. He trusts her not to push him further than he can go.

She kisses him sweetly and then slides back down his body. She's sucking his testicles gently as her fingers press his prostate from the one side and the vibrator gets it from the other.

God what she's doing makes him feel like he's coming, but he's not. There's a small pool on his stomach from the drops of pre cum she's coaxing out of him, and his cock's so hard it feels ready to burst, and she still won't stroke it.

Head back, groaning, he pulls on the bedposts again, past words, past any thought but the desire to come.

Then she touched him. Wet, slick hand, two strokes and he was gone, climaxing so hard he couldn't see, riding an arc of pleasure that felt like it was going to consume him.

He heard a loud pop and suddenly everything on his left arm went loose. For a second he thought he might have dislocated his shoulder, but nothing hurt, and once he figured that out nothing else mattered. He just lay there, limp, boneless, completely exhausted and twitching.

She got the vibrator out of him fast, what feels excellent before getting off is really painful once he does. And a few seconds after that she's cut the ropes and uncuffed him. He curls into a little ball on his side, something that always feels good after he comes hard tied spread eagle, and continues to shudder.

She curls against his back, and soothingly strokes his arm and leg.

"You okay?"

He nods and lets her hold him, quietly waiting for his body to recover. He stops shaking after a few minutes. Something about this combination does that to him. It has to be tied up, spun out, and anal, any two of the three doesn't result in him curled in a cum spattered ball, exhausted, shuddering, and high as a kite on endorphins. But all three together... Well, asking if he still remembered his safeword wasn't an idle question, he's been far enough gone in the past that he's forgotten it.

When he stops shaking and begins to uncurl, Abby sits up, untying the rope from his wrist, unwinding it from his arm. He doesn't feel like sitting up, so she doesn't bother to try and get it off his torso. She undoes the knots on both of his ankles, and comes back with a warm damp washcloth.

He lays there, eyes closed, not sleeping, but very peaceful as she wipes his hair, neck, shoulder, and chest.

"That feels good."

"You're definitely going to want to wash your hair in the morning."

"Thanks for aiming this time." The first time they had done this, he'd ended up giving himself a facial, which wasn't a turn on for either of them. "Right when I got off, something popped. What was it?"

"You broke the bed."

That got Tim to open his eyes. He turned to look at the left bedpost and saw that it was indeed no longer attached to the bed, and that Abby must have propped it against the wall when she got the washcloth.

For a second he just stared at it, and then said, "You didn't say I couldn't move my arms."

"True." She smiles, looking at joint where the bedpost came free from the bed.

Tim sits up and fingers the break. "I would have thought the rope would have gone before the bedpost."

"Apparently it's a good rope. Not so good bedpost."

"Looks like the screw pulled loose and it broke from there."

She nods. "Wrought iron for the next bed?"

"Are you going to do that to me again?"

"I intend to."

"Yeah, wrought iron. Steel if they make them." He untangles the rope from the rest of himself, and grabs the washcloth, he can feel there's a wet spot on his shoulder that she didn't get, and a long smear on his knee and thigh from when he pulled into a ball. He debates getting up and really washing off, but right now all he really wants to do is just lay there and tingle, floating on a cloud of oxytocin.

So he does.

Abby undresses, takes her hair down, and curls into his right side, head on his shoulder.

"Thank you."

"For what?" he says. If anyone is going to be giving thanks, he figures that it should be him.

"Letting me do that to you. Letting me see you like that. You look so amazing when you come."

He smiles a little, eyes drifting shut. He kisses the top of her head, inhales deeply, enjoying her scent, and the feel of her breath on his shoulder.

"It looks really intense."

If he had been a little less post-orgasmic-blissed-out, he might have caught on sooner as to where this was going, but he felt like his brain was only tangentially attached to the rest of him at that moment, so he didn't quite get where this might be going.

"Yeah, it really is." He kisses the top of her head again. "Made me see stars. Literal stars. Vision blacking out and white pinpricks."

He's breathing deeply. Not on the verge of sleep, this is more like meditation than sleep, but his mind is pretty blank right now, so sleep probably isn't all that far off.

"You really like it?"

"Usually sore the next day or two after something like that, but yeah. Really, really, words can't describe it, good."

She rolls a little, her chin resting on his chest, looking up at him. He can feel her do it, imagine it in his mind, because his eyes, stubborn little things, just aren't getting around to opening.

"Would you like to do it to me?"

"What do you mean? I've done this to you." And he has. He's spun her out so hard she's been sobbing before she gets off.

"Not all of it."

His mind flails around for a moment, trying to find the missing piece, and finally, with a grinding clunk of a gear crashing into place, he figures out what she's talking about.

"I've honestly never thought about it."

"No?" she sounds really surprised.

He shakes his head, or at least thought about it. It's entirely possible it moved a fraction of an inch. "You don't have a prostate, and, at least for me, the penetration part ranges from pretty uncomfortable to just blah. Never thought it'd be worth it for you."

"Oh."

She's quiet, thinking about that. He feels like his brain is starting to wake up a little, but his body doesn't have the energy to do much besides lay there and breathe.

"Wouldn't you like to be on the doing end of it?"

"Wouldn't mind, but, just, never something I thought much about. You let me tie you up, spin you out, touch every inch of you, worship your body, and you do the same for mine, so... um... yeah, it's just not something I've really spent a lot of time thinking about. If I've got a list of things I fantasize about, that's awfully low."

"Oh."

"But, if you want to, I'm game... Well, not right this second. I don't think I could get an erection if my life depended on it right now, let alone move, but say next weekend..."

"Yeah, I'd like that."


	48. Waking Up

So, the thing is, Tim reads, a lot. This was especially true back around 2002 when he didn't have much of a social life and he was still plotting potential first novels. And no, he doesn't read guy on guy smut; it doesn't do anything for him. But over the years trios have been getting more play, and some of them have involved two guys, and sometimes the girl isn't in the middle. And if he's following a story, he's not just going to stop reading because two of the guys are playing with each other.

Though he will start skimming.

But even skimming certain... ideas... wandered into his head, and he began to think that some exploration of this whole prostate thing might be in order.

And, well, he liked what he found. Good things, many, many good things.

But like most of the things he really liked, he was fairly sure this would be something he could do for himself for a special treat now and again, and that would be it.

Pegging, (or bend over boyfriend, which is a term he hates) as he learned it was called, tends to go along with a sphere of Femdom he doesn't much like. He's not into pain, doesn't like humiliation, and would prefer no one ever call him a filthy slut while more or less raping him, even if it is a game.

But having a beautiful woman tie him up and respectfully bugger the ever living daylights out of him, while, say, blowing him, (or teabagging apparently) that hits just about all of his being done to fantasies in one sweep.

So, maybe it was his subconscious trying to get this set up in real life. Maybe just his innate trust in Abby. But three weeks after they started dating again, when they were going through his toys, looking for something for the weekend, he didn't hide the butt plug.

She picked it up,—and well, if you know much about male anatomy, it's pretty obvious that it wasn't designed for use on a girl—looked at him curiously, and said, "You have one of these?"

He looked her straight in the eye, hoping this wouldn't freak her out, and said, "I like them. They feel good."

She smiled and said, "Cool. You'll have to show me how you like it."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"It's not weird?"

"Does it get you off?"

"Oh, God, yeah."

"Then who cares?" She stopped and thought for a moment, her gaze shifting to a different flavor of curious, like an idea that had literally never occurred to her before had just wandered into her mind. "You aren't bi, are you?"

"No." He shook his head. "I like girls, just girls. I just like that, too."

"Okay. Just, straight guys don't usually know about stuff like this." She seemed to realize how that might have sounded and quickly added. "I mean, I'm not calling you a liar. Just it's not a problem if you are—"

"But I'm not." And he's not. At all. He can never remember if 1 or 5 is completely straight on the Kinsey Scale, but whichever it is, he's there. The only way a guy is getting anywhere near Tim's prostate is if that guy has an MD from a damn good medical school.

That weekend he did show her what he did with it, and she tried a few variations on that theme, and he found out that tied up, spun out, and anal meant he'd get off so hard he'd spend several minutes after shaking. Which actually scared both of them, but a bit more reading suggested it was, well, not exactly normal, but not wildly uncommon, either.

But, with all that, from the fantasy stage to yesterday, the idea of doing it to someone else just hadn't hit him. He's certainly read about that too, and he's all in favor of hotter and tighter, but, even after a lot of prep, slowly, and with a lot of lube, he often finds the insertion part pretty uncomfortable, so he didn't see any reason why he'd want to do it to a woman.

But Abby wants to do it.

That is one of the first thoughts to hit him as he wakes, along with _What the hell did I do to my left arm? Damn that hurts! Oh yeah. Hmmm... Bed's still under warranty. Can you possibly imagine explaining why you need it fixed? No. New bed then? Guess so. _

Abby's still sleeping, so he gets up slowly, untangling himself from her and heads to the bathroom. A hot shower sounds like an excellent idea right now. She might have mopped the semen off of him, but he's still crusty with sweat, sticky from dried lube, and sore all over.

He reaches for his toothbrush with his left hand, and rapidly decides he'll be babying that arm today, if not longer. It's bizarre how doing something with your non-dominant hand is so ridiculously different from doing it with your dominant hand. Tooth brushing isn't difficult, but since he's using his right hand he's actually got to think about how to do it.

Brushing his teeth, he spends a moment really looking at himself. There's a stiff and spiky swath in his hair. Abby was right, that is definitely going to need to be washed. His hair is dry enough that most mornings it just gets a rinse, but today is going to be a shampoo day. His right wrist, the one she had cuffed, has a black bruise from where he was pulling on it, the left, from the rope, has a purple-blue one. And while his left shoulder isn't red, it does look a little swollen.

_Well and truly fucked_. He smiles a little at that, finds the aspirin, dry swallows it, and gets into the shower.

Two aspirin and hot water helps with being sore. He might not have dislocated that shoulder, but he's certainly sprained it. Explaining how he hurt himself isn't anything he's relishing for Monday. If they had done this three weekends ago he could have blamed it on the move, but they're all settled in now, so...

He can think of a good lie later.

He soaps up, right-handed, which is a little awkward because he's actually got to think about that, too, and makes sure he's gotten all the lube off. He notices that bit of him is sore, too. Not as bad as his shoulder, but he can feel what he was doing last night there, too. And, since Tim is familiar with the gate theory of pain (you only really feel whatever it is that hurts worst) he's wondering if his body just isn't sending him all of the sensations it could.

_"Wouldn't you like to be the one doing it?"_ He remembers her asking him that while he washes himself off, very gently.

The vibrator is slim, about two inches around. And while he's well aware his dick isn't going to set any size records, it's still at least twice that size. Abby might not be tiny, but she's still smaller than he is...

Well, he doesn't have to use his dick. He's got fingers, and the vibrator, and a few other toys that would work. Though, "Wouldn't you like to be the one doing it?" seems to indicate that she's expecting him to use his dick.

She slips into the shower behind him, and rests her head on his back.

"Good morning."

"Hi," he says, reaching behind with his right hand to squeeze hers.

"You were looking pretty pensive there. What's up?"

"Pretty sure I sprained my shoulder when I broke the bed."

"Ow. Okay, mental note, don't spin you out quite that long."

"Nah, that part was fine. I think the bed breaking was the problem. You can pull pretty hard on something without hurting yourself, but if it finally gives you can end up hurt."

"Still, don't want you getting hurt."

"Yeah, I was just thinking about that." He turns to face her, and turns them so she's in the water. "Have you ever had anal sex before?"

"Nope."

He's pretty surprised by that. "And you want me to do it with you?" He'd get her wanting to do it with him if she'd done it before and liked it, but if she's never done it, that sounds to him like something she's just not all that interested in.

She rubs up against him, looking up into his eyes. She certainly looks interested. "Yes."

"I'm afraid I'll hurt you."

"If it hurts, we'll stop."

"Endorphins lower your ability to feel pain." He shows her his wrists, and she kisses them gently. "I'm sore as hell this morning, and I certainly wasn't last night."

"Was last night worth it?"

He doesn't have to think about it. Given the option the only thing he'd change is using an extra rope or two to make sure the bedpost stayed attached to the rest of the headboard. "Yes."

Her look says it all.

"I'll do some research."


	49. Good Advice, Gibbs Style

"McGee." Gibbs' voice from behind the partition next to his desk.

"Yeah?" He looks up at Gibbs, sees him standing there, jacket on, ready to go home. Another long day of paperwork in the can.

"Waiting for Abby?"

"Yeah." It's late, NCIS is almost empty, and Tim's actually up to date on his paperwork. Abby's wrapping up a test and will be up in a few minutes, so with a little time to kill, he's looking at beds online.

Gibbs sees what's on his screen, a wrought iron bedframe, the sort with an arched headboard and lots of posts to tie things to, and then looks at Tim, who realizes that three weeks ago Gibbs helped Abby move their bed, so he knows how very unlikely it is they would have moved that bed if they had been thinking about getting a new one. Gibbs eyes flick from the screen and settle on the shoulder he supposedly hurt by tripping on the stairs up to their place. (Which Tony has been teasing him mercilessly about. "Super-stealthy McNinja" being the least of the jibes.) His gaze switches to Tim's wrists, which he's been very carefully keeping his cuffs over all day. Last thing he wants to do is explain to Tony, after that long conversation about nothing being rapey, how he ended up with two bruised wrists and a sprained shoulder.

But Gibbs is looking at his wrists. And he's suddenly wondering if he managed to keep his cuffs down all day.

Tim can feel that gaze on him and begins to blush.

Gibbs shrugs, comes around his desk, half-sitting, half-leaning against the corner closest to Tim, and takes out his pad.

"Wood, McGee. You want wood. Metal's only as strong as it's welds, and for furniture that's not all that strong. My daughter and one of her friends managed to break a metal bed by jumping on it. Look" he begins to sketch. "You want the headboard to end in a flange like this. That flange goes into a slot in the post. They get glued, sandwiched together, and then pegs get driven through it. Same thing on the cross pieces. You build a bed like that, and you can drop it out of a tenth story window and it'll still be in one piece after it lands."

"Uh... thanks, Boss."

Gibbs writes three names on the bottom of the page. "They make good furniture. The sort of thing that'll last forever. No matter what you might do to it."

"Okay. They make your bed?"

"No. I made it. Wedding present for Shannon. You could hit it with a truck, and it won't break."

"Good to know."

Gibbs reaches across Tim and takes his right hand in his. Tim jerks a little at the contact, but Gibbs holds on. He turns it, wrist side up, pulls back the cuff of his sleeve, and pushes his watch up a little. Tim blushes furiously as he does that.

"Pad the cuffs. Wrap your wrists before you put them on. Washcloth folded in thirds. Everyone you work with knows what sorts of marks struggling against handcuffs leave." He lets go of Tim's right hand and then checks his left. "Your watch is doing an okay job of hiding your right, but borrow one of Abby's wrist cuffs and wear it on your left until you heal. The last thing any of us want is DiNozzo harassing Abby for hurting you."

The idea that that could happen leaves Tim stunned. That it would screw things with him and DiNozzo he gets; the idea that it would make him treat Abby differently was nothing he'd ever thought. He made some sort of noise that certainly could have been ascent, but probably sounded mostly like "Urgh."

"Don't ever leave a bruise on her that shows. You show up bruised, and people'll think you two got carried away. She shows up bruised, and even if you don't end up in jail, no one will ever look at you, or her, the same way again."

In a flash Tim gets that. No matter what either of them might say, a bruise on Abby says she's a victim and he's an abuser. That idea, that he could hurt her, or that she'd be the woman who stays with a man who does that, completely short circuits Tim's brain and a long flustered string of half started sentences flow out of him. The content boiled down to 'I've never hurt her, and I'm not going to."

Gibbs doesn't smile, but his voice is warm, and Tim can feel there's real affection and likely a tinge of fear in this warning. "I know, Tim. I know you, and I know her. But some things other people, and that includes DiNozzo and Ducky, cannot ever see, no matter what."

"Yes, Boss."


	50. Research

He's at the stove, finishing up dinner when he hears the door open. She had court today, and some days that means she beats him home, others it means she doesn't. And while there's not a ton or rhyme or reason to who gets home first, whichever one of them does ends up in charge of dinner.

"Hey."

She walks in and kisses his cheek. "Smells good."

"Thanks." He puts the spatula down, turns from the stove and kisses her hello properly. "How'd court go?"

"Pretty well. Can't say much beyond that because you're on the witness list for Friday."

"That case."

"Yeah." Witnesses usually are not allowed to watch each other testify. That way they can't take notes and support or deconstruct each other's testimony. Somewhere in the tens of hundreds of pages of evidence, depositions, and disclosures NCIS hands over at the beginning of each trial, there's a clause about how the two of them are living together now, but so far no lawyer has tried to bring that into play.

He's got his sleeves rolled up, something he usually does when cooking. Her fingers trail over the cuff he's wearing on his left wrist. "I really like this on you."

He looks at it and shrugs. It's the plainest one she had, just black leather imprinted with an arabesque, with silver snaps. He's not a jewelry kind of guy, but he does kind of like it on him. It's a somewhat subtle signal that maybe he's not quite as mild and buttoned up as his clothing would suggest. "I'm liking it, too. When this heals up," The bruise on his left wrist was a yellowish ghost of its former self. "I think I'll keep wearing it."

She smiles. "Sexy. If you're going to keep wearing one, I think we need to get one specially for you."

He kisses her again. "Thanks. I like this one, and I like the fact that it's yours."

"Awww... That's so cute." She gives him a quick pat on the tush. "How long before it's ready?"

He looks at the salmon, pokes it gently. "Five minutes?"

"Okay, I've got to get out of this. I'll be back soon."

Part of him wants to go watch her get out of her court suit. The rest of him knows she hates that outfit and doesn't want anyone, let alone him, to see her in it. So he grabs some glasses and pours their drinks.

She comes back to their kitchen a minute later in her bathrobe, a long, ornate black kimono with white branches and cherry blossoms on it. She's holding a small black bottle labeled Spunk in her hand and staring at it.

She's found the newest addition to their toy box.

"McGee?"

"Yeah?"

"What is this?"

"Lube."

"Uh huh..." She's still staring at it. Like it's some exotic specimen she's never seen before.

"So, I was doing some research, and I think I might know why it hurts when I do it. Apparently glycerin based lube can dry out pretty fast. It's fine for straight sex or the inside of a condom, but the anus doesn't make any of its own lubrication, so you end up sore."

"Okay."

"So, I started researching silicone lubes. And this was the highest ranked one I could find."

"Ranked by whom?"

"I checked out a few gay sex sites. I figured if anyone would know..."

"Yeah, that makes sense and all..." She opens the top and drips a little on her finger, then rubs it between them. "It's nicely slippery."

"Yep."

"Have you tried it out, yet?"

"Did the same thing you just did, but nope, waiting for you to get home to play with it."

"Didn't want me coming home and finding you jerking off with something called Spunk?"

The the expression on his face is somewhere between a smile and a smirk. "Something like that."

She's giving him a playful look, and he can feel the teasing subtext to it.

"I'm really not bi."

She's still staring at him, then looks at the dribble on her finger. It looks exactly like what a lube called Spunk should look like.

"And I don't have a bukkake kink."

She smiles and laughs at that.

"Really, it was very highly rated. Lots of guys love this stuff."

"Did any women love it?"

He smiles. "People claiming to be women wrote very pleased reviews on the website. And they sell the stuff in gallon jugs, so someone's gotta love it."

"Gallon jugs?" Her eyes are wide as she stares at the lube on her fingers.

"Yeah. I honestly don't want to think too hard about what you're doing if you need gallons of it."

She licks the finger she'd dripped some of it on. "No taste."

"I specifically looked for that. If I'm going to be licking you, I want to taste you, not whatever artificial flavoring they dump in."

"You like how I taste?"

He steps closer to her, sniffs where her neck and ear meet, and kisses gently. "I'd bottle it and use it to flavor lube for when I'm alone if I could."

Her eyes narrow a little, the way they do when she's curious, not angry. "What exactly do you do when I'm not here?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" He grins and then takes the salmon out of the pan, putting it on plates.

"Yeah. I would."

"Honestly, these days, not all that much. If I jerk off, I'm less interested in sex after, sometimes for as long as a day or two. So, since we've been together, unless I know for a fact I'm not going to see you, like, say, Gibbs drags me to the other side of the planet again, I just don't. I'd rather spend the night horny and wake you up with a smile."

"You're saving up for me?"

"Yeah. Not nineteen anymore, so I can't get it up six times a day, and I'd rather not waste it."

"I don't know, after Jimmy's wedding would argue otherwise."

He grins. That day had been a personal best for him with six times in thirty-four hours. "I was feeling extremely motivated that day. I can't usually, or often, do that."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Got home the Tuesday after, thought about jerking off, 'cause we had a case starting up and I didn't know when we'd have time together again, and lots of good memories for it, but my dick just looked at me and said, 'You're kidding, right?'"

"It talks to you?"

He laughs. "Sometimes."

She smiles at that. "So, after dinner, you want to put this stuff through its paces?"

"Oh yeah."

* * *

A/N: Spunk is real, and my gay buddies swear by it.


	51. Weekend Sex (Almost)

For Tim there's weeknight sex and weekend sex. For the most part, ropes, toys, anything that takes serious prep is weekend sex.

Pretty much, they sleep in on Saturday, rest, put the rest of the week behind them, and go at it fresh.

So, first time anal with Abby is definitely weekend sex.

Well, Friday night sex. "Research" and playing with the Spunk has certainly gotten Tim significantly more interested in the idea of being on the doing end of the equation. And waiting another day... There is such a thing as too much anticipating and not enough doing.

Plus, this isn't going to be much of a props night. He's wary enough about accidentally hurting her, so he's sure as hell not tying her up for this.

Tonight, she's in charge.

They're starting out in the shower, first off because it's fun, and also, hygiene and all. He'll happily lick any part of Abby that might want to be licked, but, especially for this, he'd also like to know it's clean first.

So, this is, without a doubt, the most thorough shower she's ever gotten. He's enjoying just touching her all over. Stroking from her scalp to her toes. Kissing where the suds have rinsed free.

He holds her flush to him. Her back against his chest, and lightly, gently, trails his index finger down the curl of her ear, over the plane of her neck, and the slope of her shoulder, down her arm to her hand, taking it is his, twining his fingers with hers, and then lifting it, kissing her palm.

She relaxes against him as he does that, her head against his.

"So, how do you want to do this?" he asks, kissing her temple.

"Haven't decided. Debating between reverse cowgirl, with you propped up against the headboard, so you're sort of sitting and I'm in your lap, or basic spoons."

"You'll have more control in cowgirl."

"Yeah, but I'll also need more control. Only so deep you can go spooning."

"True. Only one angle that works at, too." Best he can do spooning is about three inches. Though for this the angle will be a bit steeper, so, maybe three and a quarter, three and a half.

"You have a preference?" she asks.

"Probably spooning. That works well we can pretty easily shift into cowgirl."

She nods. Spooning is usually morning sex. Slow, gentle, sleepy. Something to get them both ready for the day. But slow, gentle, and sleepy doesn't always end that way. Spooning has been a launch pad to some fairly impressive sex.

"So..." She leans over and turns off the shower. "You ready?"

He smiles. "If you are."

They get out, and he dries her off, watching the soft, fluffy cotton towel stroke along her skin and devour droplets of water.

He's kneeling in front of her, blotting her calves, drying her off more thoroughly than she's ever been dried off before, when she strokes his cheek, signaling for him to look up at her. "You really okay with this?"

He half-smiles. "Nervous."

She nods. "I really want to."

"I know." He holds her hips in his hands, looking up into her eyes. "I'm terrified of being the asshole who makes you cry and doesn't notice for two minutes."

She kneels next to him, smiles, and kisses him gently. "You aren't him."

"You'll tell me if it hurts. I mean, at all."

"I will. I've never done this with anyone else because I've never trusted anyone else enough to do it. I trust you. If it's not fun, we'll stop. That's how we play, and this won't be different."

"Good."

He stands up, and she quickly dries him off. "Come on, bedtime."

He nods. "Yes."

While it's true that the research he did had about a thousand different ideas for what to do once you actually achieved penetration, they all pretty much agreed on the before and during part. Very relaxed, very turned on, very slow, lots and lots and lots of lube.

She'd had wine with dinner, which was step one on relax. He'd skipped it. He didn't want anything that would dull his sense of touch, or lower his control or motor skills. And he's already got the massage oil sitting on the bedside table, next to the lube, because to the degree it's in his control, she is going to be relaxed, and massage helps with that.

He's been debating about getting her off before and during the sex or just during. Getting her off will certainly help with relaxed. But, while it's true that she can get off over and over, he knows that building her up slowly, spinning her out, and then getting her off results in a higher level of arousal than a whole bunch of fast orgasms.

He'll just have to play that one by ear.

"Lay down on your stomach." And she does. Laying down gracefully, head to the right, so she can see him.

June in DC means it's very pleasant out. They've got the windows open, enjoying warm breezes that smell like the promise of summer. He keeps the lights off. They're on the third floor, so there's not a whole lot of chance of anyone seeing in, but keeping it dark'll make sure no one does. Besides, the street lights from the parking lot provide a steady yellowish glow.

He sits down next to her, and gently gathers her hair off of her shoulders, tucking it next to her neck.

She makes a pleased sound, which grows louder as he trails his fingers down her back. He strokes them over her rear, and down her legs, trailing just the tips of his fingers against her, raising goosebumps on her skin.

Abby's skin. It amazes him how much he can enjoy something as simple as gently touching her skin. Amazes him how she squirms against his touch, and how seeing her skin respond to him makes him feel happy. His hands hover over her back, not touching, just letting the heat build-up between his palms and her skin, and then strokes them over her, just brushing the almost invisible hairs along her skin.

"Mmmmmm..." He loves hearing that, loves knowing how something as simple as his hand on her back makes her purr.

He straddles her, settling just below her hips. Then drips some of the oil onto his hands and sweeps it along her back. Doing this naked is always a treat. Not just the pleasure of her stretched out below him, not just the smooth pull of her skin under his hands, but if he's naked, and like right not, not hard, the tip of his penis drags along the backs of her thighs when he moves, and that sends welcome murmurs of pleasure through him, and makes her shiver.

He presses his thumbs into her shoulders, finding those tense spots, and rolling over them.

"Mmmmmm..." She wriggles against him as she moans happily. "That's good."

Yeah it is. Her bottom squirming against him is starting to take care of the whole not hard issue.

He keeps working on her shoulders, kneeding and stroking, feeling the tension start to melt under his hands. From there he slides further down, working her back, finding those stiff points along her spine and coaxing them to loosen.

She twitches when he hits one of them, so he slows down, dribbles a little more oil there, and concentrates on that spot. He ripples his knuckles over it, then soothes it with his full hand. When he can press full into it without her jerking, he moves to the next spot, slightly further down.

He finishes with her back and scoots a little further down, nudging her legs apart with his knee.

"Spread your legs." And she does. He starts by cupping her thigh in his hands, stroking his palms down her leg, then leans forward and kisses the small of her back.

His hands land at her sacrum, just below the bottom of the cross, and from there he begins to kneed her buttocks while he kisses his way up the cross.

He leans back, settling between her legs, and continues to massage her legs and rear. He's trying to do a good job of it, but he's getting distracted.

The streetlight glow might not be too bright, but between it, the moon, and the fact that they've been in here long enough for his eyes to adjust Tim can see pretty well, and what he's looking at is Abby's pussy. And seeing beautiful glistening folds of skin, he wants to touch. His fingers ghost against her, just enough contact to make her shiver a little.

He touches the back of her leg, presses gently, and manages to get across the idea that he wants her to hitch that leg up a bit. She does, which gives him a bit better access, and a much better view.

Her whole sex is visible to him and he has to touch, make real contact. His fingers slip along her clit, down her lips, teasing, briefly against her vagina, getting slick and slippery, to then stroke her anus.

She groans when he does that, and he knows that sound means she's liking what he's doing, so he does it again. No penetration with any of these touches, just petting, slipping, sliding along her.

He pulls her into doggy position and starts to lick. And he knows he's definitely going to get her off before and during the sex, because this is just too good not to. She's making extremely pleased sounds while his tongue explores, so he begins to use his fingers, too, slipping them over her clit while he laps at her anus.

She's making the noise that means oncoming orgasm, so he pulls away for a second and slips into her— because nothing on earth feels like her coming on him and he's not about to miss that— thrusting slow and sure, feeling her arch back against him, rippling and twitching, and God it feels good. He's kissing her neck and shoulder, trying to pay more attention to his lips on her skin than on what his dick's doing because while her getting off right now is a good time, him getting off spoils their plans.

She recovers quickly. That was a take-the-edge-off sort of orgasm, not the lay there unmoving for the next two hours sort. She's lying in his arms, her side against his chest.

They kiss, lips soft, wet, gentle, the slide of tongue on tongue, enjoying wet slip with minimal friction. His fingers find her nipple and begin to play. Eventually, she rolls away from him, snugging her back against his chest, drawing her top leg forward, and he figures that's a pretty clear sign that she wants him to get on with it.

He reaches behind himself, finds the lube and dribbles it onto his fingers, making sure they're all very slick, then pours a little more into the palm of his hand to spread on her.

He starts with the first finger, and as he's pressing in gently with it, feeling her body slowly giving around him, the idea of exactly what tighter means is starting to hit him. This is one finger, going very slowly, and it's the tightest, hottest thing he's ever had that finger in. And sure, he's done this to himself before, and he's got a degree in Bio-Medical Engineering—he's forgotten more anatomy than anyone on the team, save Ducky or Palmer, has ever known—so he's aware on a very intellectual level of what two rings of muscle means, but for the first time what exactly that means in a sexual sense is hitting him.

Specifically, it's hitting him that that's going to be wrapped around his dick soon, and his dick is extremely interested in having that happen. But not yet. Because right now it's only one finger and he's not about to rush this. He knows three fingers are just slightly smaller than his dick. (Of course he measured. How else was he supposed to know how many to use to stretch her out? Sure everyone says three fingers, but why? So he checked.) So absolutely nothing involving his dick is happening until all three fingers have gotten inside her and she's nice and relaxed around them.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, Tim. It's good. Different, but good."

"Not hurting?"

"Tight. Not hurting, though."

He kisses her neck and shoulders. "Touch yourself while I do it?"

She shifts her leg, hooking it back over his hip, and he feels her fingers brush his. When her hips start slowly rolling, he figures that means she's feeling turned on enough to try the second finger.

He eases that one in and she goes still while he does it. "Still good?"

"Yeah. Burns a little, but it's not bad."

He knows that sensation, felt it more than a few times, not a huge fan of it. "Want me to stop?"

"No! It feels like... there's something after the burning, or through it maybe, that I really want."

"You sure?"

She grinds back against his fingers and he gets that message loud and clear.

"Okay. Just hold up for a sec." He grabs the lube and adds more to his ring finger. When she starts to move again, he begins with that one, and once again, while he's easing it in, she goes still.

She sighs and he feels her relax against him. She wriggles a little, touching herself slow and easy, and once more her hips start up that long slow roll.

"Feels good, Tim. Really intense, but good."

"Good. Ready for more?"

"Yeah. I think so."

He lubes himself up, and taking his fingers out, adds more lube to her as well. And yeah, the angle is a bit different, and it he's concentrating so hard on going slow that he misses a lot of how slipping in really feels, but once he's set it's amazing.

It's one of the most intense sensations he's ever felt. Hot and tight, okay he was expecting that, but this is like a tiny mouth slowly pulling him in and he's never felt anything like this before. And it's slick, but not wet, and if you had asked him half an hour ago if such a thing was possible, he'd have said no, but right now he can feel the difference and it's really amazing.

He's starting to feel afraid that he'll lose it and start thrusting too hard and too fast because he knows that he'd like nothing better than to just go full out right now and really take advantage of how this feels.

He goes very still, not wanting to do that. He lets her set the pace and depth, pressing back against him. She's rocking against him, shallow thrusts that feel like hot, slick gel wrapped tight around him.

He reaches around, fingering her clit, looking to get her off, and as he does that she begins to move faster.

"God, Tim, I want you to move!"

_Yes! _

"Here." He pulls out and shifts so he's kneeling, butt on his feet, facing the headboard. He pats his lap and she gets the idea. Modified reverse cowgirl. She'll face away from him, so he'll have easy access to her whole front. She can brace against the headboard for better balance. And they can both thrust.

She straddles him, and slowly slips down on him. And this time, because she's in charge of the motion, he can just relax and let himself feel it.

His head drops against her shoulder. "It's insane how good that feels."

"Yeah." She pulls up on him, and he meets her on the downstroke. Slow, liquid thrusts, the sort that feel like silk unraveling in oil. His finger slips over her clit, also slow, and he knows how this is going to go. Long rich thrusts, the sort that feel like they don't end or begin but just move through continuous arcs of slippery friction while setting sparks up his spine and making his thighs clench.

Her hands are clenched on the headboard and her head's dropped forward to rest against it. He kisses her neck and back, one hand on her nipple, the other still sliding, over and over, on her clit.

He can look down and see it, watching her body take him in, and that always kills him. He's moving faster, losing control, but she's tightening against him, arching back, meeting every thrust, increasing her speed, as well.

He's never heard her sound like this, it's almost keening, as her whole body spasms against him.

And that's enough for him. One more fast, burying thrust and he's gone, orgasm just racing through him.

A bit later, he's got no idea how long, a minute? ten seconds? anyway, she's resting on his lap, back against his chest, and he's holding her gently while she shakes. He's feeling pretty shaky himself, but not shuddering. He strokes her arms and legs, feels her twitch as he does that, and murmurs something soft and soothing sounding.

Eventually she stops shaking. "You all right?" he asks.

"Yeah. I'm really all right." After a minute she slips off of him and heads to the bathroom. He cleans himself up a little, and when she gets out, he goes in and finishes up.

Shortly they lay together in their bed, and he spoons behind her, arms wrapped around her, and one leg over hers, holding her in a full body hug.

"You're really okay."

"I'm really okay."

"You want to do that again?"

"Oh yeah. That's definitely going into the regular rotation. And next time, I want you to tie me down and spin me out, too."

He moans at that, pressing his hips against her, even though he's completely limp right now, that action gets across that really likes that idea.

* * *

A/N: For all of you sick minded people (like me) I've got a close up shot of McGee's hand up on the blog version of this. www dot characters are my heroin dot blogspot dot com .

Ya know, if you want a better idea of what three fingers is ;).


	52. A Garnet

When the Fourth of July came and went, Tim finally did come to the conclusion that Jimmy was right. The perfect ring for Abby did not, in fact, exist and he needed to find someone to make it for him. All joking about the betting pool aside, it was time to get moving.

And he figures that if he is going to get a ring made, the first step for that is finding a stone, or stones...

He thinks about Gibbs mentioning taking Ziva along, but feels a little uncomfortable at that idea. He doesn't want Ziva thinking he's bringing her along because of Israeli stereotypes. Getting an entire ring is one thing, shopping for a gem...

Well, if the gem isn't a diamond...

And it wouldn't, be would it?

At least not a white one...

_I love you in red._ He remembers saying that, and ideas start to form.

Hours later, Tony and Gibbs are off talking to a suspect, and he's got a minute alone with Ziva. "If the case is wrapped up, would you go shopping with me on Sunday?"

"What are we shopping for?"

"A ruby, maybe some garnets."

"For Abby?"

He nods.

"Why do you want me to come along?"

While it's true that Tim's number one rule is do not lie to Gibbs, he does not have a similar rule for Ziva, so his answer is not entirely honest. It's honest enough, but just not all of the story.

"You're a woman, and when we find one that makes you suck in your breath fast and go quiet, I'm thinking that'll be a good place to start."

"Have you ever shopped for gems before, McGee?"

"Nope, you?"

"No."

"Then we'll go together and learn something. Come with me?"

"Sure. Tony will want to know what we're doing."

"You can tell him... I might have to get Gibbs to set another death threat on him though, because he'll have to keep it secret for however long it takes to get a ring, and then for me to ask her."

"I think he will keep this secret." Tony had seemed to be better at that lately. He seemed to be developing interests beyond spreading gossip around. Possibly his own life was getting interesting enough he didn't feel the need to vicariously mess about in other people's lives. "And what are you going to tell Abby?"

"Nothing. She's got a conference for new Federal forensic standards this weekend. She'll be out from six to six both days."

"Good timing."

Tim smiled. "Thank you."

* * *

Ziva doesn't live ten minutes away any longer, but he still has the route to her place memorized. Bright and early Sunday morning, he's at her place, waiting for her to come down.

"Do you know what you want?" she asks as she gets into his car and buckles her seatbelt.

"Red. I want something red. So rubies, garnets, carnelian, onyx, whatever, it's got to be red."

"She does wear white. You could go for diamonds."

"I spent five months looking at diamonds and not buying them. Palmer was right; there isn't a diamond ring on earth that's right for Abby."

"Speaking of Palmer, are we going out next weekend?"

"I hope so, but he keeps saying Breena isn't up to it."

Ziva nods. "Breena hasn't been feeling up to going out for almost four weeks now."

"Yeah. He's been saying something about allergy season, but who has allergies in July?"

"Who indeed?"

He's got the feeling that Ziva means something by the way she's asking, but whatever it is, he's not getting it. "So, just the four of us?" he asks.

"I think so. Maybe though, you should have a chat with Palmer at some point."

"We have lunch at least once a week."

"I know, but still... Allergies in July. Allergies that make you not want to play rough and running around games or dancing..."

He looks away from the road to her. "Ziva, if you had ever had allergies, you'd know you don't want to do much of anything with them. You lay around feeling sleepy and blow your nose all the time."

"Ah." She gently whacks Tim upside the back of the head. "You are such a man. She is pregnant."

"What?" Okay, that thought hadn't occurred to him at all.

"Yes. Allergies might stop you from the active part of our bi-weekly gathering. She'd still be able to drink beer and eat pizza or go out to dinner somewhere nice. Pregnant and morning sickness stop you from that."

"Oh." He thinks about it. Palmer has seemed a bit more twitchy than normal lately. "I think you're right about that."

"Of course I am right." She shakes her head. "A baby for Palmer. You and Abby getting engaged. Tony and I dating. We are growing up."

"Yeah, we are."

"So, am I going to be a bridesmaid or a groomswoman?"

"Abby's already claimed you, Breena, Gibbs, and Palmer for her side."

Ziva laughed. "You are picking teams?"

"Something like that."

"Then you get Tony and Ducky."

"Exactly."

* * *

The thing about shopping for gems is that in real life, they're awfully tiny. When you look at them online, especially on Tim's monitor, the pictures are all huge. But in real life they're these tiny little things all sort of glinting at you.

And on top of that, Tim's got no idea how big a carat is. He knows it's a weight, but he also doesn't know what that means in relation to the size of Abby's finger, which is the only ratio that matters to him.

The dealer is looking at Tim like he's an idiot because he doesn't know how big of a stone, let alone what shape, or for that matter, precisely what sort of stone he wants.

Apparently "red" isn't the kind of information most buyers come armed with.

Lucky for Tim, Ziva is there, because while the dealer might be looking at him like he's just another clueless, idiot groom, no one disrespects Ziva.

"Do you have a pad of paper?"

The dealer messes around for a moment under the counter and produces one, humoring Tim, talking to Ziva about Tel Aviv.

Tim sketches out a small square. He knows how big Abby's ring finger is, and he knows pretty well how big he wants the ring to be. So that little square represents biggest the stone can be.

"It's got to be red, and no bigger than this."

The dealer looks intensely underwhelmed by Tim, but goes to fetch a selection of stones. He comes back a few minutes later with a tray and about fifteen loose stones on it.

Honestly, none of them are rocking Tim's world. They're nice enough. Very red. But none of them feel like Abby. He glances at Ziva, who is also not looking stunned at anything. She gives her head a minute shake, and he says, "Not on this tray."

The dealer heads off to find more red stones that are smaller than the tiny square Tim had drawn. Ziva drifts off as well to go look at some of the other displays. He's waiting, tapping his finger against the display case, looking at the diamonds under the glass below his fingers. Maybe he could do one of them... They do look a bit different in real life, all shiny and sparkly...

"McGee!"

He looks at her, and she waves him over. "This one."

Ziva's pointing straight down. He walks over and looks, and she's right. It's perfect. Round cut, dark red with glints of amber, gold, and orange. He has no idea what it is or how much it costs, but right now it doesn't matter, that's the heart of Abby's ring, so it's coming home with him.

"What about this one?"

The dealer puts the tray of new stones down and takes Abby's stone out to show him. "It's a hessonite garnet. A little over three quarters of a carrot. It's a flawless passion cut stone."

"How much?"

"Twenty-five hundred dollars."

"Sold." Now Ziva's looking at him like he's an idiot. Apparently bargaining is part of this whole gem buying thing. Meanwhile the sales clerk seems to think Tim is now his newest, bestest friend and has warmed up considerably. Apparently idiot groom with money is exactly who this guy wants in his store.

Tim holds it over the square he sketched, and then holds it over his pinky as well. It's a little smaller than he was hoping for. It's the heart of her ring, but it needs some company.

"Do you have any black diamonds?"

"Yes."

"Triangle shaped ones smaller than the garnet?"

"Let me get them."

Finding two little, sparkling black teardrops to go with garnet was pretty easy. Less than half an hour later he tucked a tiny bag into the pocket of his jacket. "That was easier than I expected. Thank you, Ziva."

"You're welcome. All you have to do now is find a ring to put them in."

"Monday night, I've got a meeting set up with a jeweler."

"Good. Then what?"

"Then... 'Marry me?' I'm still bouncing proposal ideas around. Nothing seems quite right, yet. If you were Abby, what would you want?"

"I am not Abby. And I cannot even begin to guess what she would like."

Tim smiles a little. "Okay, if on the off chance someone is ever bouncing proposal ideas off me, what would you like for you?"

She grins at that and shakes her head. "Oh no. He's not getting off that easy."

"No hints at all?"

"I like sapphires."

"Good to know."

* * *

"So, Ziva's thinking Breena has the sort of allergies that might start getting better in a few weeks," Tim says to Palmer the next day.

Palmer nods. "Uh yeah, the Doc says she'll probably be feeling better in a month or six weeks."

Tim gives him a long look, and then breaks into a grin. "And how are you dealing with her 'allergies?'"

Palmer shakes his head, a little rueful, but mostly amused. It's hard to keep secrets when all your friends are cops. "When I'm not feeling seventeen feet tall and ready to start crowing about how proud I am, I'm on the verge of throwing up because I'm so scared."

Tim nods. "You're going to be a great dad."

"I hope so. It's just really intense right now, because it's this big secret. And, okay, do not ever say anything about this to anyone, 'cause, I mean this is the sort of caveman kind of thing we aren't supposed to like, right? But, God, she's mine. I mean, really mine. My woman. My child growing inside of her. And it's scary how strongly I'm feeling that right now."

"I get that. Every time I go out with Abby, I see the looks other guys give me. The whole 'How did you get her?' thing. And I just smile, because I did get her. She's mine."

"You've got a ghost of it. We're in the grocery store and this idiot almost bumped into her with his cart. He didn't actually hit her with it. She jumped out of the way, but I was going to hit him. Seriously, my fingers were in a fist and my arm was coming up when she put her hand on it and said, "I'm fine.'

"Stick that ring you keep dithering about on her finger and get her pregnant, and it'll knock your socks off."

Tim smiles. "Which is part of why I'm down here. Check this out." Tim got his phone out and showed Palmer the picture of the stone.

Palmer grins, nodding. "Better. Much better. Got someone to make it into a ring?"

"Yeah. Supposedly you and I are having dinner tonight."

"Really?" This was the first Palmer had heard of their dinner date.

"Uh huh."

"Okay. And this dinner, are you actually attending?"

"Nope. Neither are you. Got a meeting with a jeweler."

"Finally! And if your beloved were to ask, where did we go, and what did we have?"

"Rick's. I got my usual burger. You got your usual Caesar salad. And we talked about Breena's mysterious allergies."

"Okay. Bring me back pictures of the sketch. I want to see what I'm covering for."

"Will do. When is she due, anyway?"

"Early February."

"Good." Tim thinks about it for a second, and figures Palmer won't react badly to it. So he hugs him, quickly, and then pulls back. "I'm really happy for you two."

"Thanks, Tim. Me, too. I mean, I'm happy for you, too. Getting engaged...not that Abby's pregnant... Is she?"

Tim smiles. "Not yet."

"Yet?" That catches Jimmy's interest.

"I don't think your kids will be all that much older than mine."

Palmer smirks. "Are you at least going to try to marry her first?"

"Gonna try."

* * *

A/N: Wanna see Abby's garnet? It's up on the blog. charactersaremyheroin dot blogspot dot com/ 2013/ 04/ shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_9 dot html


	53. Dinner With Tony

One Thursday towards the end of July Tony said to Tim, "You doing anything after work tonight?"

"Going home, dinner with Abby."

"Would she mind too much if we had dinner?" Tony's staring at him, looking like he wants to say something important.

"You wanna just come over to our place?"

"I'd rather just talk to you."

That's got Tim's interest. "No problem. She'll understand." He fires off a quick text to Abby letting her know what is up.

"Good."

* * *

Five hours later, they're digging into some Chinese food.

"So, what's going on?" Tim asks, wondering what Tony might want to talk about without the girls. He's half wondering if Tony's getting ready to propose, but that seems a hell of a lot faster than he expected him to go, and also, why wouldn't he want Abby around for that conversation?

"I talked to Ziva last night... about ropes and things."

Okay, that was a decent reason for guy only conversation. "Cool. So, what, you want me to find some good reading material for you?"

"Maybe. Look, she used to like ropes. But she doesn't now. But she would like to like them again."

Tim is staring at Tony, completely not getting this. "I'm not following you."

Tony looks at him like he's intensely stupid and says one word, "Somalia."

And with that Tim feels intensely stupid. "Did they..." He doesn't finish that sentence, not sure he wants to.

"You know what they did to us, and they only had us for a day and a half. I don't imagine they were any gentler on her and with four months, I'm sure they got creative." And while that's not precisely yes, the look on Tony's face confirms it.

"Shit." Tim wants to go back and kill them all over again, slowly, with as much fear and pain as he can muster.

Tony's nodding, a grim look on his face. "Yeah." One word covers a whole lot of territory there.

Tim takes a moment to pull himself out of kill people mode, because that won't be useful for Tony, at all.

Tony sees him do it, and continues, "So we're talking about ropes, and she's the one who brought it up, but she said to me 'I used to enjoy being tied up, and I always hoped I'd find someone who could help me enjoy it again,' looking really expectantly at me, and I said, sure, I'd be all over that, but not right that second because I was sort of tired and that sounded like something you want to do when you're well-rested. There's only so long I can claim to be tired, and I am scared as hell at screwing this up."

"I'd be scared, too." And he would, that's way more than he'd be comfortable dealing with if it was his first time tying someone up.

"Great. What do I do?"

"Let me think." And Tim did. So many possible angles on this. "First off, tell her you're scared. Does she know you've never done anything like this?"

"No."

"Tell her that, too. Even without everything else, that'd be something good for her to know. Do you know what it is she liked about being tied up?"

"No."

"That'd be a good question to ask. Want to hazard a guess?"

Tony shakes his head. "Not really."

"What were you going to use?"

"Only thing I had on hand, neckties."

"Probably a good choice. Until you know what she's hoping to get out of it, I'd stay away from actual rope or cuffs or anything even remotely like—"

Once again, Tony is looking at him like he's an idiot. "Even I could figure that part out for myself."

Tim nods. "Does she have any silk scarves? I don't think I've ever seen her wear one."

Tony thought about it for a moment. "I don't think so."

"Where were you thinking of doing this?"

"At home!" Tony says sharply. "I'm not going to take her out in public to tie her up!"

"Not what I was asking. Bed? Chair? Piano?"

"My bed has little posts at the corners."

"You've got a king now, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. So... get her five really nice, and long, silk scarves. Wrap them up all pretty, and when she opens them, ask her to show you what she wants to do with them."

"Why five?"

"Blindfold."

Tony seems to think about that before asking, "Won't they rip?"

Tim fiddles a little with the leather cuff he wears on his left wrist. The bruise is gone, and has been for quite a while at this point, but when it faded the cuff didn't come off. "Silk is amazingly strong."

"Huh. Didn't know that."

"Yeah, you aren't going to rip it. You might be able to put a finger through it or something, but if you twist it up, the bed'll go before the silk does."

Tony's sitting there, chewing a bite of his food, just staring at Tim, and Tim is wondering why, given what he just said about Ziva showing him, that the tensile strength of silk is what Tony would ask about.

Finally Tim says, "Did you understand what I meant when I said, 'have her show you?'"

Tony's eyebrows go close together as he thinks for a moment. "I assumed you meant, she'd tell me what she used to like."

"Yeah. Ummm... No. That's not what I meant. I meant have her do it to you."

"Tie me up?" Tony looks considerably more disbelieving than appalled, so Tim's thinking that's probably a good thing.

"Sure. It's fun. You tell her you've never done this, that you're scared of screwing it up, and that you want to know, first-hand, what she likes. She'll be in charge, so if it's a trust or fear thing, that won't be an issue, and you'll know exactly what she's looking for. Once she's done it to you, you can get a good handle on what to do with her."

"Okay..."

"Look, my guess is she wants you to be in charge and completely take care of her, but I'm not sure about that, and if I'm wrong, that'll screw things up. So let her do you, see what she does, how she treats you, and play it from there."

"So, what, she ties me up, and I just lay there?"

Tim shrugs. "Probably. Depends a lot on how tied up you are. Depends on what she's hoping to get out of it. Sometimes struggling is the fun part. Sometimes it's submitting. Sometimes it's the one turning into the other. Sometimes it's about keeping you still so she can control when you get off. Sometimes it's just about trust, laying back, and letting her get you off the way she wants to, knowing she'll do you right. The big thing is you pay attention to what and more importantly how she's doing you, so you can do it back."

"And if she wants me in charge?"

Tim shrugs. "Then be in charge. Take care of her. You've done that before, right?"

Tony rolls his eyes and leans across the table to punch Tim in the shoulder.

"Tony, that wasn't a shot. Have you ever been completely in charge?" Tony doesn't say anything. He's staring at Tim, and Tim is thinking they're probably having one of those moments where Tony's speaking Italian and he's speaking Klingon, and no one's got an interpreter, but... well... he's got to try. "You tie her down, and it's all up to you. She can't scoot a little, or use her fingers, or whatever it is she might do if you aren't quite doing it for her."

"I do just fine."

"Good, glad to hear it."

He's still not sure Tony's getting what he's trying to say. He probably is, but... "If you're in charge, getting her off, more than once usually, is the point of it. You getting off is like the epilogue..." Tony's not a reader and he's staring at Tim like he's insane. "If you're in charge, you getting off is... Okay, like the previews... They might be fun and interesting, but it's not the reason you bought the ticket. And if the previews are the best part of the movie, you end up really disappointed and don't want to go see anything by that director again. If you get off, great. If you don't, there's always tomorrow. But if you're the one in charge, it's not about you anymore. If she's going to give you her body for the night, you've got to play nicely with it."

Tony's just staring at him and then finally asks, "You've had sex where you didn't get off?"

Tim shrugs. "It happens. Usually it's more like, I don't get off during the first round, but then we rest and she returns the favor after."

"You two just fuck all weekend long, don't you?"

"No." Tim smiles. "Well, not usually."

Tony shakes his head. "She ties you up?"

"Oh yeah. Anything with us is a two way street. I won't do it to her if I'm not willing to have her do it back to me."

"Anything?"

"If it's anatomically possible to do it to both of us, it's happened."

Tony's eyebrows shoot up. "Really?"

"Yeah." Tim nods.

"Even..."

Tim's fairly sure he knows what Tony's asking here, but even if he's wrong his answer is still likely to be true. "Makes you come so hard you can't see."

"Huh." Tony seems to be thinking about that, and this pleases Tim, not in a weirded out sort of way.

"That can really happen?"

"Oh yeah. Ever run so hard the color drops out of your vision?"

"Yes."

"Just like that, only a hell of a lot more fun. Look, you let her control you, and you might not be getting off anytime soon, but it'll blow your mind when you do."

"Huh..." Tony's got an especially dirty grin on his face. "Not usually my mind I'm hoping to get blown, but..."

Tim laughs. "Anyway, go play with her; come back to me if you need more help."

Tony raises an eyebrow. "What would I need more help with?"

Tim just smiles.


	54. Today It Was

It had been a really good morning. Abby had gotten home after he'd fallen asleep, but he'd woken up spooned around her, her body soft and warm against his. She slipped her leg over his, and that was all the invitation he needed. And while there was nothing particularly energetic or acrobatic about the sex that morning, they both were in an awfully good mood by breakfast.

Breakfast had come out just right. Bagels perfectly golden-brown and crispy. Bananas the exact right stage of ripe.

The new place didn't have nearly the hot water heater capacity as Abby's old one, but there was still enough hot water for both of them to get a somewhat snuggly and longer than normal shower.

Traffic co-operated and the ride to work only took twenty minutes.

All in all, it was the perfect morning. Which should have been a red flag that something was about to go very wrong.

* * *

Tim's heart is beating a million times a minute and he can barely catch his breath, but he sees something, and knows that's the best they're going to get.

"Follow me!" he yells firing fast at the men running after them.

In a second, all four of them are with him in walk in freezer.

"This is your plan? McGee, we're in a freezer full of Sarin!" Tony is not pleased with this at all.

For the moment, the men chasing them seem to have fallen back. At least, Tim can't see them anymore.

"That's the point, DiNozzo," Gibbs says. He got why Tim headed them this way. "They won't shoot at us in here, and as long as we can make sure the door stays open we're-"

"Fucked more slowly than we would have been otherwise." Tony finishes Gibb's sentence. "No one knows we're here!

"Forty minutes. We've just got to hold out forty minutes," Tim says, back against the door, eyes scanning every possible approach someone could be using to sneak up on them.

"McGee?" Ziva asks, taking up a position at the side of the door, so she can keep the warehouse in view.

"Abby knows. Before my phone blew, it sent her a text with where we are."

"What?" Gibbs asks.

"After Palmer and Ducky went missing, I got a new phone and rewired it so that if it ever lost power, or like you saw, someone messed with it so it blew up, that it would send her a message, letting her know where we are and that we're in trouble. Tony and Ziva, I programmed your phones to do the same thing, but it sends the message to Vance. Boss, yours is too damn old for it. The cavalry is coming; we just got to live long enough for it to get here. So, forty minutes."

Gibbs nods, planning. "Bullet count?"

"Five," Tim said

"Six." From DiNozzo

"Two," said Ziva.

"I've got three. McGee, on the left, covering right. Ziva right, cover left. Head shots. They're wearing vests, and we can't afford to wound them. There's six of them for every one of us, so we are going to make getting close to us so goddamn expensive they won't try it. Ziva, I've got a Baretta, DiNozzo's got a SIG, who's gun do you want?"

"Tony's."

"McGee." Gibbs hands Tim his gun.

"Boss?" He can't believe Gibbs is giving him his gun.

"If it was a rifle and they were half a mile away, I'd keep a hold of it. But you're better with a handgun than I am, and Ziva's better than Tony. You've got eight bullets each; I want to see one of them dead on the floor for each bullet."

And so they settle in to wait. Gibbs and Tony in the freezer. Ziva and Tim in the doorway. All four of them watching for anyone coming toward them.

The walk in freezer stands along the back wall of a packed warehouse. It faces into a maze built of crates piled almost to the ceiling. Lines of sight are poor because of those crates. The crates are packed with shells, and the freezer they're standing in is packed with what would make those shells so terrifying. There is, and Tim is thinking this is conservative estimate, enough Sarin behind them to take out the entire eastern seaboard. And enough ordinance in front of them to take out at least a few square blocks. Put the two together, and things could get very, very bad, very fast.

The good thing about the freezer is that they can't be flanked. It's steel, so they can't shoot through it. It's filled with poison, so unless one of the terrorists is a sniper, and a damn good one, they aren't going to be willing to fire into them for risk of hitting the gas canisters. And to make it even harder for them, Gibbs is piling boxes of the canisters up in front of them for cover. Someone shoots at them and misses, and everyone dies.

The bad thing is it's twenty by twenty, and all one those bastards has to do is shut the door, and they'll be locked in a zero degree room with finite air.

So that's the job, kill anyone that goes for that door, and pray to God that more than sixteen of them aren't willing to die for this.

* * *

"Ziva, eleven thirty," Tony says, pointing up slightly. The man he spotted is trying to come over a stack of crates.

Her eyes narrow slightly. Her finger curls into the trigger. And the man she shot was dead before he hit the floor.

* * *

Ziva's already shot three times, which means they've gotten the idea that coming up on the left is a really bad plan. The first one of them comes into Tim's line of view.

He's staring at the man, willing him to get a little closer, because he can't miss this shot.

_One of us is going home today. _He pulls the trigger, feels the kick of the gun, sees the man's head snap back and a spray of blood and brains spatter the crate behind him. _It's not you._

* * *

"Boss, when I'm out, get Tony's gun from Ziva and give her yours."

"McGee?"

"I'm left-handed, and Tony's clip will fit in my gun. The rest of you are righties and I don't want to mess around with a different gun, not for this."

* * *

"Ziva?" Gibbs asks.

"One."

"McGee?"

He fired the last time.

"Out."

"How long was that?" Gibbs asks.

Tony checks the time. "Thirty-five minutes."

Gibbs looks around, sees there are two guys, one coming from each side, and even Ziva isn't a good enough shot to hit two guys on opposite sides of her with one bullet. He hands her his knife. She is good enough to take the shot and kill the other with a thrown knife. "Ziva, cover Tony. Tony close the door. We won't freeze that fast. And if they've got any brains they'll just leave us in here, let the cold do the job for them."

* * *

They're standing in the freezer, huddled together, Ziva in the middle. She would have preferred a place on the outside, or taking turns in the middle, but the three guys shot that down. And even if Tim hadn't been able to give a quick lecture on thermodynamics to back up the one of them in the middle staying in the middle, none of the guys would have let her be on the outside.

Burying two of their girls was two girls too many. It's not gonna happen again. If any of them are getting out of here, it's Ziva.

* * *

"How much air do you think we have?" Tony asks.

"Enough so we'll freeze first," Tim answers.

"That's cheery."

Tim shrugs. This really isn't the place for cheery.

They heard the sound of gunfire. "They're here," Ziva says, and Tim feels the relief wash through all of them.

"How long was that?" Gibbs asks.

Tim checks Gibbs's watch. His arm is around Tim's waist, and within easy view. "Thirty-nine minutes."

"Think they'll blow the place rather than surrender?" Tony asks.

"Speaking of cheery thoughts," Tim says.

* * *

Time moves very, very slowly when you're standing in a freezer, unable to know what is going on around you, straining to catch bits of noise that might, hopefully give you a clue.

"How long before they figure out we're in here?" Ziva asks.

"Can't imagine it'll be too long after the shooting stops," Tony says.

"I haven't heard a shot in close to three minutes," Gibbs adds.

"So they sweep the place, and in what, ten minutes we get warm again?" Tony asks.

"I really hope so," Tim finishes.

* * *

"What the hell did we run into?" Tim asks them a few minutes later.

"One thing is certain, this is not just a weapons theft ring."

"Ya think, Ziva?"

"Homeland Security was beyond asleep at the switch on this one. I mean look at this, this is more Sarin than you need to kill everyone on the East Coast!" Tim adds.

"How did the intel miss this?" Tony asks.

"I don't know. But I will as soon as we're out of here," Gibbs says, eyes hard. Anyone they catch alive is going to have a very bad day, and Homeland Security, who foisted a case about someone stealing shells off battleships to them, is about to have a very big problem.

* * *

"Did your phone really blow up?" Tony asks an agonizingly long minute later.

"Yeah," Tim answers.

"Why?"

"I wired an explosive into it."

Tony's giving him the, _you're completely insane_ look, but Gibbs is interested, and Ziva looks intrigued.

"You carry a phone," Tony says, "packed with enough explosives to take a man's hand off, in your front left pocket." "Two inches from your dick" is left unspoken, but none of them missed the implication.

"Okay, put that way it sounds a little crazy. 'Course, I carry my gun on my left hip, too."

"And why did you feel the need to wire your phone to explode?" Tony asks.

"I've got stuff on there I don't want anyone seeing."

Tony snorts. "You'll blow a guy's hand off to keep those pictures of Abby a secret?"

"Among other things," Tim says dryly. "Look, it's not gonna blow if you drop it. And you've got to be as good with a computer as I am to even find the file that'll trigger the explosive without the right password. That's why I had to talk that idiot into opening it on my phone. The only other way to make it go off is to try and open the case."

"So, what is it you did to our phones?" Tony asks, helping them all stay distracted as they wait.

They're all shivering, but Tim's starting to get worried about Tony because Tony feels cool pressed into his side. Gibbs on his left is warm. Ziva in front of him is warm. Tony on his right is cool.

He and Ziva had been the warmest while shooting, because they were right in the doorway. Tony was behind them, in the freezer, spotting for Ziva, and Tony's dressed for summer. They all are. But for him and Gibbs that's not dressed all that different from how they dress in the winter. Tim skipped his usual jacket, but Gibbs has on his. Tony's in a light, short-sleeved button down and linen pants. Ziva's in cargo pants and a light t-shirt, but she's in the middle. So he's not too worried about her.

But Tony's getting cold.

He realizes he's got a question to answer, and anything that distracts them from the cold is good.

"Modified the power relays a little. It'll hold a charge for a second after you disable it. Just long enough to send a help message along with GPS coordinates."

"And you did not mention this?" Ziva asks.

"I only got it done on your phone yesterday."

"McGee?"

"Yeah, Boss?"

"Tomorrow, you're taking me shopping for a new phone."

"Certainly, Boss."

"And when you're done with it, it better take a man's hand off if he messes with it."

"On it, Boss."

Tony laughs. "This is all Kevin's master plan. We'll get out of here, find out this was all staged to make sure Gibbs got a phone that isn't from the Bush administration!"

Even Gibbs laughed at that.

* * *

They hear yelling, Vance, and other familiar voices looking for them. They scream back, loud as they can, voices echoing viciously through the freezer.

"We're coming to—"

The explosion cut off all sound. They felt it, and heard it, and probably for a second wondered if they had, in fact, died.

But they weren't dead.

After an extremely long minute, Vance yells back that they had booby trapped the place. "We're coming for you, just hang on."

The power cut out. Leaving them shivering in the dark.

"We cut the power." Vance's voice again. "It'll stay cold, but it won't get any colder. How long have you been in there?"

"What time is it?" Gibbs yells back.

"16:42."

"Fourteen minutes."

* * *

Cold hurts.

Tim's been cold before. Who hasn't? But there's digging your car out of the snow and then there's feeling like you've been dropped in a vat of liquid nitrogen and it's slowly flaying your skin off.

This is full body pain. Everything that can hurt does. His eyelashes hurt. They're huddled as close in to each other as they can get. Ziva's temple is against his lips. Tony's cheek is pressed to his. He doesn't know where Gibbs' face is, pitch black means he can't see, but he can feel the faint warmth, smell the coffee Gibbs had been drinking as they drove here, each time he exhales.

Tim wonders idly which one of them is going to drop first. It'll be him or Tony, he knows that. He's bigger than Tony, so more surface area to lose heat from. Tony's too underdressed, so the air can steal his heat easier.

If they could get outside, it's August, hot, sticky, humid, god awful, he's never ever going to complain about the heat again, August.

He's calculating how fast they'll lose body heat, but since he doesn't know how cold it is in here, it's useless, so he gives up.

* * *

Two things are scaring Tim. Tony's stopped talking, and Gibbs has started. Gibbs is talking about Afghanistan. Hot, hot, hot Afghanistan. Clothing drenched in sweat, gulping down salt tablets with water that goes hot as soon as you take it out of the cooler, Afghanistan. Asking Tony about it, slowly dragging answers out of him. But Tony is losing focus, not answering fast enough, and some of the answers he's coming up with are not even remotely related to what Gibbs is talking about.

* * *

"Let me out of the middle and let Tony in," Ziva says, fear adding a dangerous edge to her voice.

Tony's not shivering anymore. And he's barely talking, even when Tim or Gibbs shakes him to get the answers out.

He feels Gibbs squeeze him and knows what he's telling him. And he doesn't need Gibbs to do it, he'd do it anyway, but he's glad Gibbs is on the same page.

"Can't do it, Ziva. We all freeze faster if you two switch places. Put you on the outside, and two of us lose your heat. You lose the heat from your back. And we all lose more heat from our fronts because it'll go into warming Tony up. And it won't make any difference because he can't get any warmer than any of us are right now." He never thought studying thermodynamics would mean he'd get condemn one of his friends in the hope of giving the other two enough heat to get them out alive.

He can feel Gibbs move, and knows he's getting ready to take off his jacket and give it to Tony.

"Don't do it, Boss. It won't help him, and it will hurt you. All your jacket can do is slightly slow down the rate he's losing heat; it can't warm him up, which is what he needs. Taking it off will speed up the rate you're losing heat, and moving so you can get it off means all of us lose more heat when you disturb the little bubble of warmer air around us.

"Plenty of people freeze, and get warmed back up again, and come out of it just fine." It's not that he's lying, it's just that the sort of thing he's talking about is on par with falling out of a fifty story window and surviving. Sure, it happens. Just not often. "Sometimes, if you get hurt certain ways, they'll put your body on ice to slow everything down, so they can get the time to fix you." This is true, too, just awfully rare.

He realizes he's speaking very slowly, and feeling extremely sleepy. That's the first step of freezing to death. You fall asleep.

* * *

"Don't let him fall!" Gibbs voice pulls him out of the half-dream of snuggling under a heated blanket with Abby.

Tony was starting to collapse backwards. He and Gibbs got him, leaned him further into Ziva, and if possible pushed even closer into each other to support him.

"Wouldn't we be better on the floor?" Gibb's asks.

"Floor's solid." His words are slurring, not a good sign. "It'll suck the heat out of us faster than the air is."

He realizes he's not cold anymore. That's a worse sign.

* * *

"Ziva." Tony's voice is barely over a whisper, and it slips out of him slow and rough.

"Tony?"

"I love you."

She kissed him quickly and said, "Oh no, we are not dying today. You tell me that over a nice dinner, a nice, warm dinner, a nice warm dinner in the bath, with hot water, lots and lots of hot water, and bubbles, and candles, when Gibbs and McGee are not with us. You do not tell me that now."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Tony?"

She's shaking him, and he's not answering.

Tony's not breathing.

* * *

Tim's knees are going. He can feel it happening in slow motion. His hold on standing is slipping away as his knees unlock and he starts to collapse. Gibbs is holding him tight, trying to keep him up, but he can't hold both of them, and Tim knows that if he falls he'll take the other three with him.

And if they fall, they're dead. They won't be able to get back up any more than he will, and the floor will kill them. It'll suck the heat out and that will be it.

He can't see Gibbs, but he knows he'll get it. He takes his hand off of Gibbs' back first, giving him a second to take more of Tony's weight, and lets go.

And then there was nothing but scalding light.


	55. Schrodinger's Freezer

They wouldn't let Abby onto the scene.

Ducky and Jimmy were holding her in the ME's van, and not in the sense of locking her in, but in the sense of Jimmy had one arm around her waist, tight, and Ducky was holding her hand, also tight, making sure she stayed back.

She's babbling about being as good, if not better, of a shot than most of the agents slowly creeping up on the building, and Palmer's agreeing with her, but as Ducky is pointing out, she's also not a cop, not wearing body armor, and if she got any closer to that building than she already was, both Tim and Gibbs would double team them and kill them very, very slowly, and no one wanted that, at all.

She jumped when the explosion sounded. And it was a good thing Jimmy had a firm hold on her and is very strong, because she bolted for the warehouse when that happened, and it was only the force of his hold on her that kept her in the van.

"You can't go in there," he's saying it over and over as he holds her in place with Ducky, feeling her struggle and hearing her whimpering about her boys being in there. Jimmy can see it, the fear, the desperate need to do something. Her dad and husband are in there, and it doesn't matter that Gibbs wasn't there for the first twenty-eight years of her life or that she and Tim aren't married. The two most important men in her life are in a building that just rocked with an explosion.

Two of her best friends are in there as well, and that's not making things any better.

People are running out of the building, grabbing bags, and tools, and then slowly moving back in. And no one comes over to tell them what is going on.

They see the power go down. Hostage situation? Cutting the power is something like move number three if they're being held hostage. Bombs need electric? Maybe. Planning on storming in, night vision goggles on? Possible.

Now Palmer is holding onto her for a different reason.

She's pulling against him, trying to get to Vance. "I've got to ask. Vance is just standing there, telling people what to do. He can tell me."

"No you don't. When did you call Breena?"

"After they went to get you."

"Why?"

"Because every minute one of us was comforting her was a minute we weren't finding you." She sags against him as she says that.

Jimmy holds her and kisses the top of her head. He doesn't have to say anything after that. They just sit there, holding each other, waiting.

* * *

A million years later, Vance is in the van. "I need an answer. They're in a freezer. We've cut the power, so it's not getting any colder, but it's cold. The warehouse is booby trapped and filled with enough explosives to take out ten city blocks. How long do we have to get the traps cleared?"

"How long have they been in there?" Ducky asks.

"Fourteen minutes."

"How cold is it?" Abby asks.

Vance isn't looking at her. He's staring at the warehouse. "We don't know. They're using it to store Sarin."

"Give me a computer," Abby says, voice dead. She knows this is Vance giving them something to do. They aren't going to risk blowing up downtown DC and poisoning millions of people to get four agents. They'll take exactly as long as it takes to get to them safely, and if it happens before they freeze, all the better.

A few minutes of googling, a few more minutes of math, and the memory of what Tim was wearing this morning gives her something close to an answer. She trims five minutes off of it, just to be safe. "Seventy-five minutes from now."

"We'll have them out in seventy. Next question, if we need to, can we go through the wall?"

Ducky fields that one. "Can you cut through it, and the wall of the freezer? Certainly. They make saws and torches that can do that. Can you get one of them and get through in less than an hour? Maybe. I'm sure one of the underwater demolition teams out of Norfolk can be flown in here in time, and they could probably handle it. Can you be sure you won't accidently crush, cut, or in some other way open one of the containers of Sarin? No, Director, you can't." She can see it in Ducky's face. He loves every single person in that freezer and he is telling Vance not to do it. It's not worth the risk. A drop of Sarin the size of a pin head will kill a person just by touching their skin. A freezer full of it...

It doesn't matter who is in there, the math is on the side of caution.

"Abigail." Ducky is holding her arm, petting her hand. "Come. We have preparations to make. Heated blankets. Warm drinks. Luke warm water. We'll need to be ready to warm them up, gently." Ducky turns away from the Director and digs around in the back of the van. Finally he locates his prescription pad and scribbles a few words on it. Then he rips off another sheet, flips it over and begins writing.

"Mr. Palmer, painkillers, coffee, thermal blankets, heating pads. I believe we passed a Walmart on the way, take Abigail. You should be able to find all of that there. I want you back here in fort-five minutes."

Jimmy nods, snatches the list, grabs Abby's keys from her, and they run to her car.

Thirty-four minutes later they were back, and Ducky oversaw a the creation of a quick and dirty hypothermia trauma center/triage. And for anything he couldn't handle, there were two ambulances waiting.

* * *

Twenty-nine minutes and forty-two seconds later, eight agents, Dornaget and Vance among them, carried them out of the warehouse.


	56. You All Came Home

A/N: Since a few of you asked really nicely, and because two cliffhangers in a row is kind of cruel. ;) Back to one chapter a day tomorrow.

* * *

Tim can't stop shivering.

He watched them run Tony to a gurney, packing him in heated blankets. An EMT started a line of heated saline and the ambulance roared off. But they weren't breathing for him, and they weren't pumping his chest, so he's alive.

And right now that's all that matters.

* * *

He's so cold, and the shivering just won't stop.

And the heated blankets, the coffee, and Abby wrapped around him hasn't stopped the shivering.

Vance wants answers. Ducky told him, and this blew Tim's mind once he realized it happened, about three minutes after Ducky had said it, "Director, bugger off. All three of them are frozen, and in no condition to do anything besides warm up and rest. Tonight, they rest. Tomorrow, they rest. Noon, day after tomorrow, that's the soonest you get to talk to any of them. And I do not care if the President himself is breathing down your neck for answers, those are my orders, and when it comes to this, my orders trump his."

Ducky checked them for frostbite, and amazingly enough, he doesn't have any. Gibbs does. His feet are white. So are the tips of his fingers. But he and Ziva don't, probably because they were at the door shooting for the first half hour.

As soon as Ducky says she doesn't have frostbite, Ziva's wants to go to the hospital after Tony, but she's not warmed up enough to fight Palmer, who is holding onto her. "Ziva, we're going home. And as soon as you're warmed up, I will take you to Tony. But right now you've got to get warmed up."

Ducky then spends about ten minutes explaining to Abby what they are supposed to be doing. He says they could go to the hospital, but really there's no need for it. Tim can warm up just as easily at home as he can at the hospital. Though Ducky does give her a long list of issues to look out for and explains that if any of them do happen, to call him immediately.

Tim's floating through it, not really aware of much of anything besides his body shaking and the glorious, scalding, hot of the air and blanket.

Palmer goes with Ziva, Ducky goes with Gibbs, and Abby guides him to her car.

He's expecting her to take him home. She doesn't. She drives into town, and pulls up at the Adam's House.

"Abby..." He's having a hard time talking, relaxing his jaw enough to speak just means his teeth chatter uncontrollably.

"Jacuzzi hot tub."

He nods. That sounds really good right about now.

They have a tub at their place, but it's like four feet long. He can lay back, and have most of his legs sticking out. Or sit down, and have his upper half out. Either way that's not full immersion in lukewarm water, which Ducky recommended.

She parks and leaves him in the car, heater on, seat heaters turned on high, and he just sits there and dozes as well as he can with his whole body shaking.

Eventually she's back, arm around his waist, his arm over her shoulders, pressing in close and leading him to a room. And if people wondered about the man wrapped in a blanket, shivering, in the middle of the worst of August heat, he didn't notice.

* * *

She'd already gotten the bath started. It was a good six inches full by the time he was standing next to the tub. He doesn't even try to get himself out of his clothing. He's shaking too hard to work a zipper, let alone the buttons on his shirt.

Tim stands there while she undresses him.

He can see himself in the mirror. It's been at least an hour since they got out, but his lips, fingernails, nipples, and toenails are all still blue. His skin is tinged with it.

He sits, slowly, on the edge of the bath, slides his feet in, and screams, jerking them out of the water, falling backward, unable to coordinate well enough to catch himself before he topples over.

She got him before he hit the floor. Broke his fall, and lowered him, gently, the last few inches.

"What happened?"

"Burned."

He doesn't have frostbite. He's just cold, very, very cold. And Ducky had said something about keeping the water lukewarm at first. He didn't mention that if you put a very cold part of your body into warm water, it'll burn you.

Abby got him sitting up, wrapped him back up in the blanket, and cranked the cold water. Obviously what had felt lukewarm to her was still way too hot.

A minute later she dripped some water on his foot. "Better?"

He nods.

"Okay, let's try this again." And once again, he got in the bath, and this time it didn't burn, it was just pleasantly warm, so he just laid there and dozed, letting the heat slowly soak back into his body.

He half-heard her voice saying, "I don't care if it's August, I want two pitchers of hot chocolate up here, now!"

He smiles a little at that. Back in... March maybe, it was a freakishly late storm for DC, they went out to play in the snow, and after, they came in, shivering, and he made them hot chocolate, telling her about how much he loved it on cold days.

She's leaning against the side of the tub, petting his hair. He turns and leans into her hand, though his eyes don't open.

"Hi."

"You really here, now?" she asks.

"Enough. You mind adding some more hot to this?"

"No."

She turns on the hot tap for about ten seconds, and then swirls the water around him. "That's good. How warm is it?"

"Seventy-eight? Eighty-two? Cold swimming pool temp."

"Shit."

"Yeah, you're cold."

He opens his eyes to look at his fingers and toes. The color is slowly starting to come back. "Can't believe I didn't get frostbite."

She kisses his forehead, resting with her lips against him, not moving.

A minute later, there's a knock on the door, and she goes to answer it. He reaches up with his foot, nudges the hot water tap. More of it starts to dribble into the tub.

She comes in, holding a mug full of hot chocolate in one hand, and a coffee carafe full of it in the other.

She hands him the mug. "Drink."

He does, and it's absolutely delicious, and way too hot. It burns on the way down, and the mug burns his fingers, but he doesn't care. Just because it feels hot to him doesn't mean it really is. While he drinks, she puts the carafe on the shelf with the scrubby and soap, and then takes off her own clothing.

"Scoot forward a bit."

He does, and she slides in behind him. A minute after that he's resting in warm (ish) water, his back against her chest, his head on her shoulder, as she held, arms and legs wrapped around, onto him.

Eventually the shivers stop. Eventually the water's steaming hot.

Eventually he can talk. She doesn't ask questions, doesn't nudge him for this, she just holds him and lets him warm up, safe and wrapped in her body.

Abby knows that he'll talk when he can. That's how he is. Press him too soon, and it's useless, he'll just shut down, walk away. But if she gives him the space he needs for this, he won't hold onto it, either. All she has to do is stay there, holding him, and eventually, he'll tell her what happened.

"We'd gotten the intel on that warehouse, but when we got there Ziva noticed a van in front, and the van was being loaded. Tony ID'd the driver and one of the guys loading as Jamison and Hacker, so we decided that instead of running in and grabbing them to follow and see where they were going with the shells." At that point in the op they knew about the shells. That's how they got this case, Homeland Security had a case where someone was stealing shells off of battleships. And who better than NCIS to get into that?

The Sarin was the surprise twist.

"We followed them. Which is how we got to the second warehouse, where you guys found us. We'd followed them, but apparently they'd followed us as well." It was supposed to be a small group. Four, maybe six guys, tops. And all six of them were in view, so they didn't pay too close of attention to who might have been behind them. Homeland Security had files on Jamison and Hacker, knew they were working together, thought they were selling the shells to different radical groups.

"When we got out of the car to see what was inside that warehouse, they grabbed us. Took our guns and cells, and herded us into the warehouse." Which was where they found out four-six guys was closer to thirty. And the theft/sale ring was some sort of terrorist organization that, judging by the body armor and the way they were all together, was about to go and attack something.

"I watched him kill each phone, and I know what can happen if he messes with mine. So I start babbling about I want to live, how I've got three kids at home, and how I've got some really important info on my phone and I'll trade him the password for getting out of there. Hoping the lies about who's at home let Gibbs and Tony and Ziva know that we're about to get the only distraction we'll get, so in a second we need to bolt for the guns and run.

"And he's being a dick about the phone, taunting me about what I could possibly have on it that he'd want. And Tony's on the same page I am less than a second later, yelling at me about not letting that info go, complaining to Gibbs about how computer geeks are useless on a field team. Gibbs is staring at me like he's never been more disgusted in his life. Ziva actually got free and hit me to make me 'shut up,' and when they grabbed her again she was three steps closer to the guns. I kept babbling about how we knew about them and if he wanted to see all the intel on them he'd open that file. And then I fed him the wrong password, and it blew his hand off, and we grabbed our guns and ran like hell. Twenty guys between us and the doors, so into the warehouse we went.

"I saw the freezer, saw what was in it, and I led us to it. And as long as no one closed the door, we could use it for cover and hold out until you guys came."

Tim closes his eyes and goes quiet. He can still feel his heart pounding, the claustrophobic feeling of being closed in between too high crates filled with shells, and glint of stainless steel on the far wall. She gives him a gentle squeeze and strokes his face, bringing him back to a hot bath in a perfectly safe hotel room.

He swallows, starts to talk again. "I killed seven men today. Maybe more. I fired ten times while we were running. Not sure if I hit anyone then. I maimed one. My phone took his hand clean off. Might have killed him, too. I don't know if they got the artery clamped in time. But when we were in the freezer, I had seven bullets. I couldn't miss, so I didn't."

"How did you have seven bullets?" His gun holds fifteen bullets, hence the question.

He opens his eyes. "Five from mine, two from Tony's."

"Tony let you use his gun?"

"No. Ziva picked his gun. Gibbs gave me his. But I couldn't miss, so I didn't want to switch guns, so I got Tony's magazine when I ran out, and Ziva got Gibbs' gun. Ziva and I guarded the door, picking them off as they kept coming, trying to shut us in, while Tony and Gibbs stayed behind us, in the freezer, spotting the next target for us." And while that's a little vague, and she's not entirely following him, she's not about to ask for more clarification, not right now. It makes sense to him, and that's enough.

"Targets." He closes his eyes, feeling the hit of his gun snapping into his palm as it fired. "They weren't people." He starts to shiver again. "That's never been true before. Before it's always been a person. But today they were just...the things trying to keep me from going home to you. If I was going to keep breathing, they had to stop, and I stopped them. I didn't miss. Seven bullets, seven head shots, seven dead men."

He's not crying. He's shivering, and his voice is rough, but he's not crying. Abby squeezes him a little tighter, kisses his temple, trying to comfort him with her touch.

He inhales deep and ragged, still shaking. "Tony's a person. He's my best friend, and I talked Ziva into letting him freeze. She was in the middle, and that's just the way it was. Nothing else was going to happen. We didn't even have to talk about it. As soon as the door shut, we snuggled in around her." Abby's gently rubbing his chest, her lips pressed against the side of his head. She can feel his control slipping away from him, feel him slipping away from her, back into the frozen dark in his mind.

"But Tony was already cold at that point. He was losing heat faster than the rest of us. He should have been in the middle, he needed the heat more, but we just couldn't do it. If anyone was going to be in the middle, it was Ziva. We put Kate and Jenny in the ground, and we couldn't do it for her. So Ziva was in the middle."

And now he is crying, clutching the hand that was stroking his chest. "He stopped talking. He stopped shivering. And she wanted to change places, and _I_ talked her out of it. And if I couldn't have talked her out of it, Gibbs and I would have held her in place. Gibbs was wearing his jacket, and he tried to take it off, give it to Tony, and I talked him out of that, too. It couldn't have saved Tony, and it would have killed Gibbs that much faster."

She's petting him as he takes a deep breath, trying to get the crying under control, because he needs to get these words out.

"Tony understands, Tim."

"I know. He approved even; he and Gibbs would have done the exact same thing for me if you were in the middle. And Gibbs was right with me on it. But that doesn't make it better, doesn't change it. _I_ talked them out of it. _I_ told the lies that made Ziva stay still."

"You all came home."

He nods. Still crying, and shifts so he's on his side, holding onto her, head against her chest. She kisses his forehead. "He fell over, and we caught him, made sure he stayed standing... He told Ziva he loved her... and then he just stopped... Ziva was shaking him... and he didn't move... I was holding him... and I couldn't feel him breathe." He's inhaling fast between each phrase, gulping air, and shaking from head to toes with his tears. "And by that point I was swaying on my feet, too, just about ready to drop... and he's not breathing... Ziva was crying... and she's trying to slap Tony, but she can't because we're too pressed in against her... And Gibbs is holding on to us, like our lives depend on it... and they do... and I could feel it... my knees were going... and Tony's dead... and if I take them down, Gibbs and Ziva are next, and I started to collapse, and he can't hold both of us up, so I let go... and then the door opened and they carried us out and we were in scalding light and hot air... but..." And he can't form words, for a moment he's just shaking and crying.

Abby holds him, rocking him gently. "You all came home."

"He wasn't breathing!" He's sobbing, curled into a ball on his side, head on her chest, clinging to her. "I put him in that room, and he wasn't breathing when he came out."

"He is now." She holds him tight, arms cradled around his head and shoulders while he sobs on her. And it doesn't matter that today is the second worst day of her life, because this is the worst day of his. She finds her calm center, pushes her own panic away, the absolute white hot arc of fear at hearing he had let go, and holds him, making gentle, almost shushing sounds, because right now he needs the comfort more than she does.


	57. Alive

The next morning they head to the hospital. Ducky, Jimmy, and Breena are on vigil in the waiting room.

"How is he?" Tim had asked that about nine times now. On the phone when he called Jimmy for an update. Of Abby each time she checked in over the course of the night. And now of Ducky, who is sitting with Jimmy and Breena, looking to be in a good humor.

"He'll be fine, Timothy. They're keeping him here until tonight, maybe tomorrow morning, just to keep an eye on things, but he's going to be fine."

Tim nods. "Where's Gibbs? In with him?"

"No. Jethro is home. Once I had him thawed out, I called Fornell and told him to hold a gun to his head if necessary, but to make sure he rested and stayed off his feet, and then I came here."

Tim smiles a little at that image, and adds going to visit Gibbs to the to-do list. "Can we go in?"

"They were resting when we left, but yes, I think you can go in," Ducky says. "Room 211."

They head down the hall, and find the room. The door is shut, and Abby knocks softly. They hear Ziva say, "Come in."

Tony's sleeping in the bed. For someone who is going to be just fine, there are a lot of bandages on him. His fingers and ears are wrapped in soft white gauze. But there are no tubes in him, and he's breathing, and his color is good, so maybe he really is going to be okay.

Ziva's laying on her side, next to him on the bed, her hand on his chest.

She gets up slowly and gently when she sees it's them. As soon as she's clear of Tony, Abby wraps her in a massive, and quiet, hug. Tim hangs back for a second, hoping she's not pissed at him, either for treating her like a doll in need of extra protection, or for not doing more for Tony, but she looks at him over Abby's shoulder and gestures for him, and in another second he's wrapped around both of them, too.

After a few minutes, Ziva pulled back and looked at him. "You are all right?"

He nods. He's as all right as he can be. "You?"

"Yes."

"Has he woken up?" Tim asks.

"Yes. They've got him on strong pain medication, and it's making him sleep."

"Okay." Abby sees him staring at Tony, and knows what he needs.

"When was the last time you got something to eat?" she asks Ziva, who looks exhausted.

"I do not know."

"Come on, let's get you some food, and we'll pick up an extra-large whatever you think Tony would like."

Ziva sees Tim watching Tony, and agrees to go. Abby leads her out, arm around her waist.

He drags the chair, quietly, next to the bed. He'd take Tony's hand, but they're covered in bandages, so he gently holds his wrist.

He can feel Tony's pulse under his fingers, see the slow rise/fall of his chest, and for the first time since Tony said, "Yes, Ma'am." Tim really believes he's alive. He sighs at that, starting to really relax.

"Ziva?" Tony doesn't open his eyes when he says that.

"Abby took her to get some food."

"McGee?" He turns his face toward Tim, but still has his eyes shut.

"Yeah."

"You've got really soft hands."

Tim smiles a little. "Thanks."

"Is Gibbs here?"

"Ducky tells me he's got Fornell holding a gun to his head, forcing him to stay home and rest. His feet were pretty badly frostbitten."

"Yeah. They tell me I'm short a few toes, now, and the top of my right ear."

"Shit." He needs to have a chat with Ducky as to what constitutes fine. Missing body parts is not "fine."

"She says she's fine. Is she, really?"

"I think so. No frostbite, and Palmer wasn't going to let her come until she was warmed back up."

"You don't think she killed Palmer and came here anyway?"

"He and Breena are in the waiting room."

"Good."

He sits there, holding onto Tony's wrist, not sure what, if anything, to say.

Tony opens his eyes and looks at Tim. "I kind of remember you telling her not to switch places with me."

"Yeah."

Tony's eyes are half closed, and not very focused, but his expression is intense, and Tim knows whatever he says next, he means with every fiber of his soul. "Thanks."

"I hated doing it." He doesn't wipe away the tear that's creeping down his cheek.

"I know." Tony's eyes slide shut again.

"Tony."

"Yeah?"

Tim squeezes his wrist. "I'm really glad you're alive."

"Me, too."

* * *

Tony drifts back to sleep after that, and Tim sits there holding his wrist. He dozes a little as well, but he hears it when the door opens, and turns to look.

Gibbs is standing there, pale, in pain or high as a kite on painkillers,—Tim can't tell which from this far away.—and swaying a little.

He stands up fast and goes to Gibbs, wrapping an arm around him, letting him rest his weight on him, trying to get it off his feet. "You shot Fornell, didn't you?"

"He's okay?" Gibbs is staring at Tony as Tim basically carries him to the sofa on the side of the room.

"Ducky says he is. But he's lost some toes and part of his ear."

Gibbs nods, letting Tim put him on the sofa, feet up. Tim really looks at him, and decides high as a kite on painkillers is the correct answer. His eyes are dilated and not focusing well.

"You should be in bed."

"Had to see him."

"I know, me too."

Gibbs stares at Tim for a long time. He's laying on the sofa, and Tim is standing next to it, watching Tony.

"C'mere."

Tim sits on the edge of the sofa and Gibbs sits up and hugs him, tight. "You got us all home, Tim."

He thought, after last night and this morning, that he was cried out, but apparently he wasn't. Tim hasn't been hugged, not like this, not by a dad, since his grandfather died, and he'd forgotten how good it felt and how much he needed it. And eventually he felt Ziva and Abby join them, wrapping around the two of them, and it felt so very good to have people to hold when you're hurt and scared.

* * *

A/N: I lied. Two chapters today, too. Thanks for all the lovely reviews lately. Love, love, love getting them!


	58. True Love Is Not Just Fluffy Kittens

58. True Love Is Not Just Fluffy Kittens and Rainbows

They went home about 2:00. Tim was having a hard time staying awake, and sleeping in the chair next to Tony just wasn't a good plan.

He hadn't really slept the night before. He kept swimming through exhausted half-dream/memories of the men he killed, Tony not breathing, and falling, slowly to a floor colder than ice, colder than he was, but in the dream, the door didn't fling open and Dornie wasn't immediately running in and picking him up.

Abby got him home, and he crashed into their bed, still in the clothing he had almost died in, asleep less than a minute after his head hit the pillow.

This time, he didn't dream.

It's dark, and he's hungry when he wakes up. The clock says it's 8:42.

He heads toward the kitchen, wondering where Abby is, and then hears water running in their second bathroom, which is weird. They don't really ever use that bathroom, don't really need it. And Abby rarely gets a night-time shower. Not like it never happens, and it's true they didn't get one this morning, but why wouldn't she be in the bathroom off of their bedroom?

He knocks and hears a muffled, "Yeah?"

So he goes in, and stops dead.

She's sitting on the floor, back against the tub, tap and ventilation fan on, arms wrapped around her knees, sobbing.

He's right next to her, arm around her shoulders less than half a breath later.

She looks at him, face puffy, eyes red and bloodshot. "I didn't want to wake you up, but I couldn't keep it in any longer."

Tim suddenly gets that she's had an absolutely horrific two days as well, and that she's been being strong for him, making sure he had someone to cry on when he needed it.

"Hey." He's petting her hair, and gets her settled between his legs, snuggled into his chest. "I've got you."

This time he held her while she sobbed, letting her tears soak into his shirt, trying to sooth her by just being there.

Eventually the sobbing slowed and she turned around, still crying, straddling his thighs, staring into his eyes. He was expecting sad, but furious is there, too, and it takes him by surprise.

"You do not get to die on me." Her voice is low, soft, raw from the crying and shaking with anger.

He nods. She punches him, hard, on the shoulder, and he rubs it gently.

"You do not get to dangle this perfect fantasy life in front of me: married, house, kids, grow old together and then take it away by dying on me! You don't get to make me want that, need it, and then take it away!" She takes a fast, shuddering breath. "You don't get to make me need you and then go away." She's blinking as the tears stream down her face. "You don't." That was almost a whimper, her hands clenching on his shoulders.

His hands wrap around her back, and he kisses her. "I'm not going anywhere."

Wrong answer, though he's not sure if anything he could have said would have been right. She hit him on the shoulder again, and once again, this isn't just a little annoyed tap, there is rage and terror in this hit, and it hurts. "You don't know that! Kate went out there and never came home. Jenny didn't come home. Mike didn't come home." Another fast, hard, shuddering breath. "My mom and dad didn't come home!"

"I'm here now."

She's sobbing again, whole body shaking in his arms, but she doesn't want to curl into him, he can see that. "You let go! You let go of Gibbs and Ziva and Tony. You were going to lie down and die!"

He's too close to it, the memory of letting go of Gibbs is still too fresh, and he can't keep his own voice or tears under control as he says, "If I had kept holding on, we all would have died."

"You didn't know that!" She hits him again, both fists slamming into his shoulders, and he takes her wrists in his hands, holding tight, accepting that she's furious and terrified, but not willing to let her beat it out on his skin. "You don't get to let go! You don't ever let go! As long as you are breathing, you will hold on. And if it's you or Ziva, or you or Tony, or you or Gibbs, _you pick you_!" She didn't yell the last bit, her voice dropped and went soft, but he knows she has never, ever been this angry at anyone before, and she has never meant anything the way she means that.

He doesn't say anything to that, not sure what he could say. Tony, Ziva, Gibbs, they're his partners, and he'd throw his life in front of theirs without thinking about it. But if he does that, she'll be here, alone, and Tony and Ziva and Gibbs aren't him, they aren't the life, the love she's come to count on, they aren't the future they both desperately want.

He can remember telling Wolf that you can be married to the job or married to your spouse, and he can see from the way she's looking at him a choice is coming up.

"You said say the word, I'm saying it. Get the desk job. I'm not sitting there again, watching our life fade away, powerless to do anything about it."

He kisses her forehead. "I'll talk to Vance in the morning."

She stares at him for a moment, breathing hard and fast, not looking at all relieved by him agreeing to do it. He can feel from the way she's trying to move her arms that she wants to hit him again, but he's not going to let her do that, so she throws her head back and screams.

He hopes the water and the ventilation fan is enough to at least muffle that sound. Now would be a very bad time for the neighbors to call the cops.

But it seemed to help. She's still crying, but looks calmer when she says, "Don't talk to Vance. Without you in the field they all would have just vanished, and..."

And they both know how badly things could have gone if they hadn't shown up in time to stop those guys. She can do the math as well as he can, but being handed a flag at the end of a funeral, no matter how many lives you save by dying, doesn't make saying goodbye any easier, and it doesn't make the loss of the one you love best any less painful.

For a long minute they sit there, watching each other. He doesn't know what he can say to her, not sure if there is anything. Because, like when Jimmy and Ducky got kidnapped, the best he can say, the best he can ever say is 'today it wasn't me' and especially right now, that's just not enough.

Eventually, enough time passes and she relaxes a little. He lets go of her wrists, and she wraps her arms around his neck. He touches her face gently, and she turns into his hand and kisses his fingers. Her eyes close, and for another minute she just breathes, slowly, getting herself under control.

Then she opens her eyes. "The first time we dated, after you gave me the first poem, I was lying next to you in the coffin, watching you sleep, and I could feel it, if I let myself, I'd fall in love with you, and not just the so-happy-I-like-having-you-around-love, but the my-life-melts-into-yours-and-you-become-just-as-im portant-to-me-as-breathing-love, and I couldn't take it."

He, obviously, doesn't remember that part of it. But he does remember waking up with her staring at him, and smiling at her, loving having her near, reaching up to kiss her, and watching her more or less jump out of the coffin, run into the shower, and then tell him about how she didn't want anything beyond friendship and sex when she got out. "That was the morning you told me you didn't want anything serious."

She nods, and he strokes her shoulders and arms. "Yeah. I loved my parents like that. And Ziva's right, you don't get over it. You just get through it. But losing it breaks you. I'm not the person I was before they died. I wasn't going to let that happen again."

"Why'd you change your mind?"

She smiles a little. "Kyle. He has a girlfriend he adores and a lot of really deep, intense relationships; he reminds me of who I used to be before they died. And I liked that version of me. And keeping a wall between me and really loving something wasn't working. It didn't keep fear away. It didn't make life better. It didn't make it hurt any less when Kate or Jenny died. It didn't make burying Mike any easier. It just made my life shallower because I didn't get to really enjoy them.

"And you asked me out, and I realized I didn't want shallow with you. That of everyone in my life, you were the one I didn't want shallow with. I bought my bed the next day, because I wanted a place for you in my home, in my life."

He kisses her gently. Lips stroking over hers.

She pulls back after a few seconds. "But I can't lose this. I can't lose you. And I am not okay with you almost dying. A bullet comes out of nowhere, and there's nothing you can do about it, fine. That's fate. That's the speeding car going the wrong way. And if it happens, it happens. But you promise me, no matter what, if it's in your control, you come home! You do not ever let go again."

And that was the change. He's not Tony's partner anymore, he's Abby's. She comes first. Honor, duty, love, all of these have bound him to Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs, but now she has first claim on them. Family first, Gibbs has said, but he had to lose his to get to the point where he could live that. And now, above and beyond the others, Abby is family. And he's not entirely sure how to balance his work and her, but he's certainly going to try to figure it out.

So he kisses her, gently, and holds her face in his hands while he says, "If it's in my power, I will come home. As long as there is breath in my body, I will fight to return to you."

Her eyes close as he says that and she inhales deeply, and opens the slowly, holding his gaze with hers. "Make a baby with me? So, that, if something happens, if you ever aren't here, you're still here."

There's an electric rush that goes with her words, a full body thrill that's unlike anything he's ever felt before. It's not pleasure. Pleasure is part of it, but this is more intense than that, it's more real, more meaningful. This might be ecstasy, in the original, religious sense, or as close to that as he'll ever feel.

"Yes!"

Her lips crush against his, both of them fighting with their clothing, tearing at it, with an almost frenzy of desire to get naked fast. _God, please, yes!_

The thousand feelings of the last two days distilled into her body on his and the smooth, hot, tight roll of her hips against his, all of it moving toward life.

_Yes. Life. Fuck. And again, yes!_ Her body on his. Her soul under his hands. Love and terror, agony and joy wrapping into each other and thrusting towards life stretching into forever.

And if death is eternal, and if you can't cheat or win, this at least pushes it off a little further. This motion, this joy, this white-hot electric pleasure rising and falling like breath puts extinction off just a little further, buying life a generation more.

If there's anything that does a better job of letting you know you're alive than sex for the purpose of making a child, Tim doesn't know what it might be.

She's warm and soft in his lap. He holds her close, lips on hers, his left hand buried in her hair, right on the small of her back, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. She broke the kiss, head falling back, and he licked her throat, kissing greedily, feeling her pulse under his mouth.

And right that minute he's never been more alive, and has never been more grateful for that fact.

* * *

Hours later, a thought occurs to him as they're in the kitchen wolfing down a large plate of scrambled eggs. Both of them were famished and neither had felt energetic enough to make anything even remotely complicated.

"Wasn't your last Depo shot like, two weeks ago?" He sounds disappointed as he asks, because he knows it's true, and that shuts down a lot of the post-sex, maybe-baby glow.

She thinks about that, sees the look on his face, and then grins at him.

"Get me pregnant ten weeks from now?"

He feels the smile spread across his face, wide and happy, the first gesture of unalloyed joy in two days. "My pleasure."

* * *

A/N: Precious Pup asked me about boundaries. How we'd seen some of Tim's but hadn't really explored Abby's. I've been thinking about that, and who Abby is since. I'd already written this when she asked, and I think this chapter starts to answer that: Abby's boundaries are emotional. We'll see more of hers as the chapters progress, but that fear of real emotional intimacy was her big one.

More goodies tomorrow.


	59. In The Basement

"Hey."

Gibbs is in his basement, working on... he's still not sure what it is. Probably not another boat. At least nothing in there looks like the skeleton of another boat to him, but still, what else would he need a stove and curved bookshelves for? Not like he's going to build a cabin in his own basement.

Well, knowing Gibbs, maybe he would.

"What's on your mind?" Gibbs asks as Tim stands on the bottom step.

"First off." He handed Gibbs a new phone. "I don't have it wired up yet. I want you to get used to using it before I do that. Don't want you accidentally blowing off your own hand."

Gibbs nods, staring at the smartphone, feeling the surprisingly solid weight of it in his hand. There are no buttons on it, and he's thinking this is going to take some getting used to. He looks up at Tim an says, "Next up?"

Tim sits down on the second-from-the-bottom step. He takes off his badge and looks at it.

"Abby's my partner." Gibbs sits down next to him. "And I'm not willing to die for this, not anymore. I love you, and I love Tony, and I love Ziva, but I won't throw myself in front of a bullet for you, not anymore. I can't. I'll kill whoever needs killing, but I won't die for you. I have a woman, and eventually children, who depend on me. At the end of the day, I have to come home."

He looks at Gibbs, who for once doesn't have an expression that wraps everything up nice and tidy, and looks at his badge again. "Is it time to ask for the transfer to Cybercrime?"

Gibbs shrugs. Tim searches his face and can see Gibbs doesn't know the answer, or maybe he does, but like Tim, he's got two different ones. No, he doesn't want the team he's spent ten years building ripped apart. Yes, this is exactly who he wants for Abby's husband, the man who will value her and their children above all other commitments.

"How did you handle being married and a Marine? Would you have hesitated to save someone at the cost of your life? Was it there in your mind that if you died, she'd be alone, crying?"

Gibbs shrugs again, and gets up to pour both of them a drink. This isn't or, at least for him, can't be, a cold sober conversation. He drinks his, and Tim holds his, not really feeling like drinking right now.

They sit there quietly for a long time. Eventually, Gibbs says, "I always told myself it was for the greater good. I was saving lives, protecting people. And that was true. And she believed in that, too. She knew I loved my job, she knew it was important, and she supported me in it. We were married for twelve years, and in twelve years she never complained to me about the job. And after she died I hated myself for that job. I hated all the lost years. I missed five years of her life. I missed three of Kelly's nine years. Shannon kept a journal, and after... I read it. And she was scared, and she was alone, a lot.

"I wasn't there to protect them. I wasn't there to save them. And in the end, I wasn't there to comfort them. They died alone.

"I failed both of them. And that will always be with me. What we do, it's a shit substitute for having been there, but knowing I help others, keep other men out of my position, it was the only thing that let me sleep." Gibbs shakes his head, and Tim gets the sense that "sleep" is a euphemism for "kept me from eating my gun those first few years."

Gibbs sees Tim get it. Sees him understand why he has to be the best, has to push them harder, has to put more guys away faster than anyone else, why this team and this job is his life, and he continues, "I won't lie; I want you on my team. I want you working for me, finding the pieces that save lives and put killers in jail. You are a damn good agent, and whoever takes your place won't be nearly as good. But if you want Cybercrime, and you want to be there for Abby, every day, every night, I will understand and approve.

"She's your wife, Tim," and his look says, _even if you are taking your sweet time on getting 'round to actually marrying her._ "And she should come first, and when you two have kids, they'll come first, too. We'll take second for as long as you can give it. But when it's time to go, I think you'll know. It won't be a question; it'll just be a fact."

Tim closes his eyes, sighs, and takes a drink.

"I don't think it's time, yet."

"Good."

"I don't want to be the man who breaks her heart."

"I know. And I know she's not cut out for this, not for the rest of your lives. Shannon was alone and scared, and she never said anything about it to me because she believed in it just as strongly as I did. She was willing to lose me to protect others. But Abby isn't Shannon. Shannon never had to put her life back together around the hole a loved one leaves."

Tim nods.

"I saw you writing to her at Palmer's wedding. And I knew you'd both grown up enough to be with each other. And I knew that meant we'd lose you. Tony and Ziva do too, even if they aren't saying anything about it, yet."

"I don't want to screw you guys, either."

"I know, Tim."

"It's a lot easier to just live for yourself."

Gibbs smiles a little. "Yeah, it is."

Tim fiddles with his glass. "You mind if I just sit here for a while."

"Nope."

Gibbs stood up. "You want any more?"

Tim looks at the barely touched bourbon in his hand. He sips a little. "I'm good." Gibbs pours himself some more and sets the glass on his workbench.

"She was really angry at me when we got home."

Gibbs nods. When he'd gotten his first Purple Heart, Shannon had been extremely displeased that he'd earned it. "She still angry?" That might be why Tim was here instead of with Abby.

"Not so much right now. But I think we both needed a little time on our own."

Gibbs nods at that, too.

"She pushed it aside to be there for me."

"She's a good woman, Tim."

"I know." He shakes his head a little. "Just feel like a jerk. I didn't even occur to me she was having a hard time until after we got home from the hospital and I woke up and found her crying."

"I doubt she'll hold it against you. You're allowed to be a little self-centered when you almost die."

"I guess." He drinks a little more and sits there quietly. Gibbs goes back to his project and begins working.

Tim watches him sanding something. There's a gentle, soothing sound to it, soft and raspy. He can easily see how this might get you into a good headspace.

It was maybe twenty minutes later when Tim says, "You knew I was writing to her at Palmer's wedding."

"Pen and paper. Unless you're filling out a form, I've never seen you use pen and paper."

Tim nods at that.

"When did you figure out we were together?"

Gibbs looks up. "Borin. Even you aren't that bad at asking women out. You had someone in mind for those tickets, but not her. Two hours later, you've got a date with Abby. I'm not a genius, but I can do that math."

"You didn't say anything."

"What would I have said? Hey, McGee, get your ass in gear and marry that woman."

Tim looks amused. "You really loosen up when you drink, don't you?"

Gibbs smiles, sips more of his drink.

"You could have said, 'Hey, no need to sneak around. Rule twelve doesn't apply here.'"

"When you transferred to my team, you were dating Abby, right?"

"Yes."

"Did I say anything to you about twelve then?"

"No."

"Wanna guess why?"

"Oh." In retrospect, that made a whole lot of sense.

"Yeah. Have I ever said anything to you about twelve?"

"No. Tony filled me in on that one."

Gibbs just looks at him. Tim sips his drink and says, "Huh."

"If I couldn't be there for Abby, who did I send to take care of her?"

"Me."

"Who's home did I have her stay at when she needed protection?"

"Mine."

"Who do you think got you sent to Mexico with her?"

"You."

"I'm not saying twelve is just a guideline or made to be broken. Twelve is there for an awfully good reason. But twelve is something I've never worried about with you."

"Tony's a different story?"

"Yeah, and so am I. Wrote twelve years before I met Tony. But you seem pretty good at not letting your balls do the thinking."

Tim nods.

Gibbs takes another drink. "What I couldn't figure out was what the hell was taking you two so long."

Tim shrugs. "We'd already broken up once. Didn't want to risk our friendship if it was going to happen again."

Gibbs seems to think about that. "You were going to marry her, back the first time?"

Tim shrugs again. "Probably. But it wasn't just up to me."

"No it wasn't. And you two needed the time apart, maybe not that much of it, to get your heads straight."

"Yeah." Tim takes another drink. "Was the thing with Diane a test?"

Gibbs smiles.

"Did I pass?"

Gibbs smiles wider. "I didn't let Fornell shoot you, did I?"

Tim shakes his head and rolls his eyes a little. "How did you end up married to her?"

Now it was Gibbs' turn to shrug. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Were you drunk?"

The look Gibbs gives Tim indicates he's not the only one who loosens up when drinking. Then he glances at Tim's glass and notices he's had about two teaspoons of bourbon in the last hour, so it's not the alcohol. Gibbs gets a very satisfied look on his face, enjoying Tim actually being relaxed around him.

"Not the whole time." Gibbs looks at the empty glass next to him. "Drinks to relieve his Messianic complex?"

Tim holds out his hands in a placating gesture. "They don't let me write the blurbs on my books. Some guy in marketing does that. The words 'Messianic complex' do not occur anywhere inside the book."

"Uh huh." Gibbs' look now says _Cut the bullshit._

"They really don't."

"And the guy in marketing came up with that out of the blue?"

"Nope, my editor gave him a quick write up, which I did write, and the words 'Messianic complex' might have been in that." Tim smiles, a little.

Gibbs just looks at him.

"Please, you three were Probie-ing the ever living shit out of me. It was fun to get some back."

"Good."

Tim takes another drink, and Gibbs puts down his tools, leans against his workbench facing Tim, looking like he's actually expecting to talk for a while.

"Why did you take me to Afghanistan?"

Gibbs smiles at that, and Tim's not entirely sure, because he doesn't think he's ever seen this expression before, at least not on Gibbs, but that might be salacious joy in his eyes. "Because coming home from Afghanistan is a hell of a lot of fun."

Yep, he'd read that expression right. "That's what those looks were about."

"What looks?" Gibbs asks.

"You pretty much spent all of the last day smirking at me. I almost hit you."

Gibbs laughs and shakes his head. "Never seen you that keyed up. Didn't think you could get that keyed up. And I knew what was going to be waiting for you when you got home."

Tim raises an eyebrow at him. "You took me half way around the world so I could get laid? I was doing just fine on that on my own."

"If all you got was laid when you got home, you're not doing it right," Gibbs says dryly.

Tim shakes his head and laughs. "Okay, not just laid. And yeah, getting home was a lot of fun."

"And next time the job takes us to the other side of the world, I'll take Tony and let him have a real homecoming."

Tim thinks about that and smirks. "That's the single dirtiest thing I've ever heard you say."

"That's 'cause you didn't know me when I was on active duty."

Tim looks at him curiously.

Gibbs shrugs. "I wasn't born this old, you know?"

Tim nods.

"So what is taking so long on the you two getting married? Last I heard you had the stones picked out."

"Picked out, purchased, taken to the jeweler, ring designed, and now the guy is taking forever to get it done, but supposedly he'll be done by the end of the month."

"So go be a hard ass and speed him up."

"What, did you get a new date in the pool?"

"No. Just be nice if you'd get married before I'm too old to walk her down the aisle."

"Well, unlike my mechanic, who is replaceable, this guy isn't. You want filigree work, really good filigree work, you go to him. And if you want it done right, done perfect, you wait until he gets done."

"This better be one hell of a ring."

"I can show you a picture of the sketch if you like."

"Nah. When you get it'll be soon enough."

Tim nods and stands up. It's not exactly late, but he'd like to get home before dinnertime. "I should get going."

"Okay."

"You want to come with me? Abby'd be happy to have you over for dinner, too."

"Sure."


	60. Being An Adult

Tim woke with a jerk. His heart was pounding, his body covered in sweat, and the spike of adrenaline from the nightmare made sure he wasn't going to fall back to sleep anytime soon.

He checked the clock. 4:17. That was later than he'd managed to sleep any night in the last week.

"You okay?" Abby asked.

"I will be," he said gently. "Go back to sleep."

He hadn't figured out how to get himself out of the nightmares without waking her up. The first night she had gotten up with him, but really, he just wanted to be alone after he pulled out of those dreams.

She'd taken it pretty well when he explained that. She wants to be there to comfort him, but right now he needs the space to be in his own head, and she's willing to let him have that space.

So she went back to sleep, and he got up, pulling on a pair of pajama pants and heading for his office.

He doesn't actually remember what he's dreaming of, there are no images that go with the heart pounding terror, just the fear. Hell, that might be the entire dream. It might just be blackness and cold fear. Not like he didn't just do that.

He detours to the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water, and then flicks the light on in his office.

Light helps. It pulls him the rest of the way out of the dream. It's not that he's afraid of the dark these days, it's just that his whole mind, whole body knows he's not in that freezer if there's light.

He sets the glass on the window sill and opens the window. Muggy August air flows in, and he stands in front of the window, head bowed, thumbs pressing into his eyebrows, letting the humid, late summer heat soak into him.

He'd talked to Wolf yesterday. Talking to the crisis counselor is mandatory after you almost get killed. Short talk, about twenty minutes of what he'd been up to lately, mostly how his life had changed in the last ten months. Wolf listened to him, asked a few general questions, and then took one of his cards out of his pocket, filled it in with a date and time (10:00 AM September 25, 2013) and said to him, "I know you need the time to get it right in your head before you can talk to me about it. Take the time. Six weeks, we'll talk again."

Tim nodded. That sounded better than staring at the clock trying to fill an hour with meaningless blather.

"I want you to think about something between now and then. Last time you almost got killed, you dealt with it by putting your life in order. And that was good. That was constructive. Your life is in order now. You've got just about everything you've ever wanted, and are moving towards the things you don't yet have. So the question is, now that you don't have something to chase to keep fear away, how are you going to deal with it?"

And the answer is, he doesn't know.

And he could see that Wolf knew he didn't deal with the fear the first time, didn't even try to. He pushed it aside as fast as possible, and threw himself into getting the life he wanted, and he didn't let it touch him.

He rubs his shoulders, staring at his reflection in the window, listening to the birds starting to wake up. May 12, 2012. August 6, 2013. Too many close calls too close together.

He turns, takes a few steps, sits at his writing desk, and stares at his typewriter. Then shakes his head and gets back up. Burrowing into McGregor is just another way of not dealing with it. Then he looks at the typewriter again, maybe not. Writing the next chapter is a way of not dealing with it. McGregor isn't dealing with anything like possibly dying, he's off hacking the CIA to wrangle the intel they need.

But McGregor is a safe way for him to deal with the things that happen to him, a way to give himself the space to think about it, and while there's no place for this in the current novel, there's no reason why McGregor can't have a short story, or that this can't be a theme in the next novel. Hell, worst comes to worst, he can write his own damn fanfiction. Not like he's the only author who occasionally wants to play with his characters in a way that doesn't fit with the cannon.

He pulls the page out of the typewriter, and finds a fresh one.

He's ten pages into it when Abby knocks on the door.

"Hey?"

She pokes her head in. "You going to work?"

He blinks. "What time is it?"

"7:10."

As late as he can push it and still get a (very) fast shower, shave, breakfast, and in the car in time to get there by eight.

"Yes, but I'll be in late." Tony's not back until tomorrow. Gibbs hasn't been cleared for anything other than desk duty. And Ziva's still ducking Wolf, so she isn't cleared to be in the field, either. They won't mind if he shows up late or takes a half day. Hell, if he gives these pages to Wolf, he'll get cleared for active duty before the rest of the team. That might win him some brownie points from Gibbs. "I've got to get this out."

"Okay. You want some coffee?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

She's back a few minutes later with a mug of coffee, just the way he likes it, and kisses his forehead while he types. He nods a little, and smiles when she does it, but his mind is on the page, in McGregor's head, or his own, hard to tell right now where the line is, but that's the point of this.

He didn't hear it when she headed out.

By 10:00 he had twenty-five pages next to him, and was feeling... better? Probably. More sure of himself, yes. Somewhere around page thirteen he fully shifted out of McGregor and into himself, and that was a good thing.

And he also knew what he needed to do. He's not putting fear aside by this. He's not hiding from death. He's preparing for it. If the first step of being a real grown-up was getting a life worth living, the next step is accepting you won't always be here, and making it as easy as possible on the ones you leave behind.

He stood up, stretched for a moment. Noticed the empty coffee cup next to him, and got a refill along with a bagel and a banana.

Then he headed back to his office, and this time to his computer. Most of this wouldn't take too long. He got online, headed to his bank, and set Abby as his next of kin and beneficiary. He did the same for his IRA, for his money market account, for the 401K, and his investment account. She'd been his medical proxy since 2006, so that wasn't an issue. He went to the NCIS human resources benefits page, and set her up as the beneficiary on his life insurance and pension.

One last thing. He called in to the NCIS switchboard and asked to be connected to Legal. They could see him at 11:30.

He texted Ziva, letting her know he'd be in after lunch.

By two, when he was back in the Bullpen, his will was done and would be filed before end of business that day.

Once he got to his desk, he packed up the pages he'd written in one of the red interoffice mail envelopes, put Wolf's name on it, along with a note saying he wanted those pages back eventually.

Gibbs and Ziva watched him do it, but didn't ask any questions. And right that moment he felt the lack of Tony in the desk next to them very acutely.

_He'll be back tomorrow._

And then he settled in for three hours of paperwork.

* * *

After dinner he took Abby into his office, gave her all of his passwords, a copy of his will, and took her through all of his accounts.

He wasn't sure how she'd take it. Beyond setting up a joint checking account for rent, food, and utilities, they'd kept their finances separate. He hoped she wouldn't be annoyed that he put her on all of his accounts without asking first. And she wasn't.

She was sad. Not that he had done it, but that it needed to be done at all.

She half-smiled at him, trying to lighten the words, and said, "No happy endings."

He shook his head. "Not in real life. Eventually it'll be just one or the other of us."

"I never thought I'd envy my parents."

He looked at her, confused. From everything he's heard about them, there were a lot of great things about Gloria and Thomas Sciuto, things worth envying.

"The way they died. Didn't have to deal with any of this."

"Oh." Her parents had died together. "I'm not sure leaving your young kids behind counts as the happy ending, either."

"Not for us, at least." She sighed. "I'll see the guys in legal tomorrow, get my stuff in order."

"Thanks. I was thinking, since we don't have any family nearby, how about asking Jimmy and Breena to be the guardians for our kids?"

She smiled, eyes tearing. "I think they'd be a really good choice."

"Yeah."

It certainly hadn't been a light or fluffy evening. But when they got to bed he was feeling easier than he had in ten days. And that night, he slept until morning, waking up at his usual time.


	61. Labor Day

Labor Day weekend, a Federal holiday, a day for kicking back, relaxing, picnics, the last beach weekend of summer, and, best of all, Team Gibbs wasn't on call.

Which is why three quarters of Team Gibbs, Abby, and the Palmers were planning on doing exactly that, on the beach in the Outer Banks.

Three weeks earlier, as they had wrapped up what normally would have been Pizza Night, but was actually Thank God We're All Alive Celebration Night (grilling at Gibbs' house), Breena said, "Jimmy tells me you aren't on call for Labor Day."

This was met by nods and versions of, "Yep."

"My dad has a place in the Outer Banks." This was where Tim could feel himself, Tony, Ziva, and Abby all frantically thinking of excuses to get out of this, because while they love Breena, her dad is a whole other story. "He and my mom usually go there for the weekends during the summer. But they'll be in Tennessee for Labor Day, so the house will be empty, and Jimmy and I were wondering if you'd all like to come down with us for the long weekend?"

Tim looked at Abby to answer. He's not a huge beach kind of guy, not that he doesn't like it, he spent a lot of most of his summer vacations at the beach, but he'd rather do mountains than shore. Still going sounds fun to him. Abby, on the other hand, isn't so much allergic to sun as not it's biggest fan, so he's not sure if she'd like to spend a weekend more or less laying about in it.

And while Tony and Ziva were jumping on a beach weekend with both feet, Abby gave him a little nod, so he said, "Sure, that sounds like a lot of fun."

* * *

Later that night, as they were getting ready for bed he asked, "Do you even own a bathing suit?"

She shoved him gently, grinned, went to her dresser, and pulled out a black tankini. He stared at it for a moment, happily imagining her in it. "How about you?"

It occurred to him the last time he had gone swimming he weighed twenty pounds less than he does now. "Yeah, but it's too small." He reaches over for his phone, and seven minutes later he puts it back down. "And now I have one that fits. Or, at least, I will in about three days when it gets here."

"It must be so easy to be a guy. You need clothing, and in less than ten minutes you've got it. I need clothing, and I need to remember which size goes with which brand and how they cut everything and they've got the torso long enough for me..."

Tim listens to her go on about women's clothing for a moment, agreeing with her that sometimes it is nice to be a guy.

* * *

"So, come on, romantic beach weekend, romantic beach weekend Breena and I more or less set up precisely for this. You, her, waves gently lapping on a moonlit beach." Palmer's wigging his fingers, mimicking the waves rolling in. "You gonna do it?" They're walking out of NCIS at the end of a not too long day, heading to their respective homes.

Tim sighs. Waves gently lapping on a moonlit beach actually sounds pretty good to him. "Ring still isn't done."

"Still?" Palmer looks disbelieving. "My God! What is this guy doing, mining the ore and smelting it himself?"

"Probably. Last I heard titanium just doesn't do this sort of work well, and he had to melt the whole thing back down again, mess with the alloy some, and begin from scratch."

Palmer rolled his eyes. "Damn it! I doubled my bet."

Tim stops, looks at Jimmy, and sighs. "Anyone have Halloween yet?"

"Nope, not yet."

"Idiots. Take Halloween."

"Okay."

"Really, it better be an awesome present."

"Pool's up to four thousand dollars. It will be."

* * *

"I am in the wrong career," Tony said to Ziva on Friday night as they got out of her car and looked at the house in front of them. "I mean, who knew there was this sort of money in funerals?"

They're standing in front of a sprawling blue house on the beach. Literally, on the sand, water about two hundred feet away, glinting in the moonlight, dunes to the left and right, the nearest house a small rectangle of light on the horizon. It's on stilts to deal with possible flooding, and a huge porch wraps around the first floor.

They had beaten the Palmers and... "You think she'll take his last name?"

Ziva looks at Tony with a question in her eyes.

"I was just thinking, with the way you drive, we beat the Palmers and... Tim and Abby? The McGees? McGeek and his Gothic Princess? McGoth? McAbby?"

Ziva thought about that while taking her bag out of the trunk of her Mini. Tony eyeballed the bag. "Awfully small bag."

"I do not have a lot of clothing in it." And then she smiled at him, eyes warm and playful. "And the clothing that is in it is tiny."

"Oh, you are so bad."

She smiled again, kissing him quickly, and then hands him his bag. "I think she will take his name. Do you think he'll ask while we're here?"

"No. Palmer says the ring's still being made, and with this much time invested in it, he's not gonna ask without it."

Abby's roadster pulled up, which killed that topic of conversation.

They got out, and Tim grabbed their bag. Abby stared at the house and said, "Wow."

"Yeah," Tony nodded. For a moment they just stood there and appreciated the view.

The sound of one more engine let them know Breena and Palmer had arrived. They got out, and Breena said, "It's even nicer inside."

* * *

Saturday morning: Six people playing on the beach, splashing about in the waves. Three of them guys. Three of them girls.

It wasn't too hard to figure out which of the girls went with which guy. Of course, for Tim and Abby there were the matching tats. And even if they hadn't had matching ones, they were the only ones sporting any skin ink. And even if there hadn't been the ink, both of them in black bathing suits, and the wrist cuffs would have been a hint.

Palmer and Breena more or less radiated a sort of sweet, innocent, deeply in love fun that looked like it came right out of a 1950s beach movie. Okay, sure if it had been a 1950s movie, Breena wouldn't have been wearing a bikini four months pregnant, but that didn't really mar the vibe. And Jimmy, in a pair of fairly short and tight swim trunks and an open Hawaiian shirt, certainly fit the 1950s beach movie look to a T.

Tim remembered Jimmy's comment about forgetting what it felt like to wear pants, and realized Palmer's working on forgetting what it feel like to wear shirts this weekend. Granted, he doesn't often get a chance to show off in front of Tim and Tony, and flashing his abs all over the place just might be him doing that.

And Tony and Ziva, tanned, athletic, un-selfconscious and playing in the sand just looked right with each other.

* * *

Saturday afternoon: Breena's parents had decorated the porch with two of those double wide recliners with soft cushions and pillows.

He and Abby are camped out on one of them. He's got his laptop and is writing, all goes well he might just wrap this one up this weekend. She's curled, back against his side, on her right, reading a forensics journal. Both of them have earbuds in, listening to their own music.

Jimmy and Breena are on the other one. He's also reading, an actual novel, while she naps next to him. Tim half-notices that from time to time, Jimmy will stop, spend a moment watching his wife, and pet her stomach.

He catches Jimmy's eye the next time he does it. Jimmy smiles at him, and Tim pulls out his earbuds.

"I can feel her moving," Jimmy says quietly.

"It's a her?"

"I think she is. Won't know for sure for a bit."

"So, you're going to find out?"

"Yeah. What are you working on?"

"Deep Six book four. I'm about ten-thousand words short of finished."

"And am I dreaming of sleeping with dead people in this one?" Jimmy says, deadpan.

Tim flashes him a guilty smile. "Ummm... no. Pimmy Jalmer had an unfortunate accident in chapter two and died. The new assistant ME, James Relamp, is proving to be a very capable member of the team and has found the link between all the bodies, thus helping Tibbs and his team home in on the killer."

"Finally. Relamp?

"I'm bad with names."

Palmer's look says, _Well, obviously._ Then he says, "Necrophilia," snorts, and shakes his head.

"Hey, you've had sex in the morgue."

"Well, okay, yeah, that's true. But not with any of the bodies!"

"Breena got what that scene was really about."

Jimmy's just staring at him.

Tim shrugs. "Fine, my editor said, 'Sex it up,' so I did."

"Tim, if that's where your mind goes when someone tells you to sex something up, you are one sick, sick, sick puppy."

"It was that or make you Ducky's boy toy."

Jimmy shudders. Tim laughs, puts the earbuds back in, and goes back to writing.

* * *

Saturday night. Palmer and Abby had done the shopping. Tony and Breena cooked. Which means Tim and Ziva are on dishes.

Which suits Tim just fine. 'Round about an hour earlier he had noticed something. Ziva was holding beer, she was playing with beer, she even lifted the beer to her lips, but the one thing she wasn't actually doing was swallowing beer.

So, as he washes the dishes and she dries, he says, casually, "I noticed you aren't drinking." She smiles a little at that. "Any reason for that?"

"Maybe. I do not know yet, but—"

"You aren't taking any chances."

"No. I'm not."

He looks from their place by the kitchen sink across the dining room to Tony standing next to the TV in the great room, expounding upon their movie options for the night. He grins, remembering the insane rush that went with trying to get Abby pregnant right after he thawed out. That Tony and Ziva might have felt that way too was pretty cool. His eyes wander to Breena, four months pregnant, and he did a little math, wondering if she and Jimmy had come to the same conclusion right after he got kidnapped, and it had just taken a few cycles, or like he and Abby, had to wait for the birth control to get out of her system.

"I wouldn't have thought he'd almost die and decide he wanted babies."

"He does not know, and I'd appreciate it if he doesn't know."

Tim whips his gaze back to Ziva. "How can he not know?"

"I had an oops." He feels a little stupid at that, remembering that not everyone plans every baby in advance. Ziva continues, "Remember the Dawber case?"

"How could I forget?" It was their first real case after Tony got back on duty, and they had worked flat out for almost four straight days.

"I got so tired I forgot to take my pills."

"Oh. You're probably okay. I think you actually have to have sex when you've missed the pill for it to be a problem."

The look she gives him says very eloquently that she knows that.

"When did you even find the time..." And that trails off when Tim remembers that he and Abby had found time for the quickest quickie in the history of quickies during the third night.

They traditionally work days. But if a body gets found before they leave, they end up on the case. The first sailor, John Dawber, was found at 4:30 on Monday. They worked through Monday night and most of Tuesday. Normally they would have gone home to rest at that point, but the next body, Ian Mannin, was found at 4:30 on Tuesday, so they worked through that night. Wednesday, 4:30, all of them but Gibbs shuffling about like tired zombies, found them with yet a third dead sailor.

Midnight on Thursday, he and Abby had done everything they could. Every computer he had access to was looking for something, anything to connect the victims. Major Mass Spec was sorting through yet another batch of trace.

"We need sleep."

She nodded and laid out the lambskin rugs. He looked at them and realized he'd hit the point where he was so tired he couldn't sleep. Too many hours up and your brain gets stuck, it needs something to help shift the chemical processes, let it know it's turn off time. In the past, had he been single, he would have quickly jerked off in the men's room and crashed at his desk.

So he told her that and wrapped up with, "And if you aren't interested, I completely understand. I can take care of this myself. But if you are, I'd certainly appreciate a hand."

Abby looked at him, shrugged, and said, "I've had seventeen Caf-Pows today. I could use something to take the edge off."

And so, on the soft, fluffy lambskin rugs, there was four minutes of the most functional, least erotic or romantic sex of his life. (And yes, he was counting all twenty-two seconds of his first time on that list.) Followed by both of them crashing like a Fokker in a nosedive with the pilot dead at the stick, sharing Bert as a pillow, and sleeping like the dead for almost three hours.

He woke to Gibbs crouching in front of them, Caff-Pow in hand, jogging Abby's shoulder saying, "Talk to me Abbs," as Major Mass Spec beeped in the background.

He tripped over his feet and staggered to his computer, so tired that his eyes were barely willing to focus. He was half aware of Abby reading the results to Gibbs (basically, nothing in this batch is even remotely useful) and slowly his brain woke up enough to see what was on the screen.

"I got it, Boss."

Gibbs turned away from Abby to him. "What?"

"Their ID numbers are all prime factors of 13 and 23. I can't tell you who the killer is, but the next victim is one of these four sailors."

"Good job, Tim." He even got patted on the shoulder. And as Gibbs headed up to the bullpen to tell Tony and Ziva, he looked over his shoulder and said, "McGee."

"Yeah."

"Zip your fly before you come up."

Tim, tired into utter silliness by that point, giggled, snapped into something that only looked like attention to someone who hadn't personally been in the military, fired off a salute, and said, "On it, Boss."

Tim realizes Ziva is staring at him, and he's just holding a dish under the running water. He smiles a little. "Thursday morning in the lab."

Ziva shrugs. "Tuesday night in the elevator."

Tim looks really surprised at that, and Ziva smiles. "Gibbs is not the only one who can switch off an elevator."

"Uh huh. So... are you going to tell Tony?"

"Only if there is something to tell. I do not think it would be kind to tell him unless I know for sure."

"You're probably right about that. So, if you are, is this good news?"

She shrugs again. "It would be for me. I don't think it would be for him."

He squeezes her hand quickly, not sure what to say to that. She squeezes his back, understanding his touch.

A minute later they finish the dishes, and join the other four. He catches the tail end of Palmer saying, "...homoerotic wank-fest."

"Wank-fest?" Tony says, disbelieving. "Okay, I get that you idolize Ducky, but, Jimmy, you aren't British."

"There's not a good American term for that."

"Circle jerk? Homoerotic wank-fest is more or less the definition of that," Tim adds, sitting on the sofa next to Abby, wrapping an arm around her. "What are we talking about?"

"Tony brought James Bond movies, but they're all the ones with Daniel Craig. Hence, homoerotic wank-fest."

"Au contraire, my sadly misguided Autopsy Gremlin, if it was just the three of us, you could accuse me of that, but you are forgetting, half of our group is female, and at least Ziva prefers Craig."

Ziva shrugs. "I prefer him out of the Bonds. He is the most believable spy out of the men who have played Bond. He looks ready to kill people."

"Connery." Abby says "Craig's just too...Grrrr... Like Ziva said, ready to kill people. He's pretty enough, but he never looks like he's having fun. Like, you know how they talk about the guy who more Americans would like to have a beer with wins the Presidency? Okay, well, Connery'd be more fun to have that beer with. Plus that accent!"

Breena's nodding at that. "Brosnan. I like 'em tall, dark, and handsome. And that scene, in the Thomas Crowne Affair, where he's dancing with Renee Russo..."

"Nooo... The Thomas Crowne Affair starred Steve McQueen and no one else. That remake was an abomination." Tony looks pained at the idea of the remake. "Still, Palmer, if your masculinity is so delicate that it can't take Daniel Craig in a bathing suit, I did bring more than just Bond."

"I can take Craig. Skyfall was pretty good, even if he spent more time naked in the movie than any of the girls. I'm just wondering about why, out of all the Bonds, you'd pick him."

"Okay. Fine. I wasn't planning on saying it until tomorrow, but now's as good a time as any. I'm gay. Ziva's been my beard for the last four months. Gibbs and I are running away to New York to get married next week."

Tim's not sure if he's ever laughed that hard before.

* * *

Tim spends a minute before bed looking at himself in the mirror over the dresser, while Abby finishes up in the bathroom. He's naked except for the wrist cuff, he only takes that off when he showers. It only took two nights of sleeping sans PJs to decide he preferred it that way. So this time of night, when he's waiting for Abby to get done with her pre-bed routine, he's always naked.

He's certainly been in worse shape in his life, but he's thinking it might be time to reign in his love affair with sugar a bit.

It's not that he's been feeling particularly self-conscious about not wearing a shirt on the beach, (amazing how a regular diet of really good sex can help make you feel comfortable in your skin) it's just, well, next to Palmer's somehow zero percent body fat physique and Tony's you can still see that he used to be an athlete body, he's thinking that maybe it's time to get into somewhat better shape.

He doesn't need to be skinny again, let alone cut, but maybe few less pounds around the middle would be a decent goal. And he's thinking that basically, if he were to cut the snacks out, the amount of sex he's getting should take care of that.

Abby comes out, also naked, presses up against his back, wrapping her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder, and looks at him in the mirror. He twines his fingers with her, and she kisses him on the neck.

"Whacha doin?"

"Debating ending, or at least toning down, my love affair with sugar."

She runs her hand over his chest and stomach. "Wouldn't be the worst idea you've ever had."

He appreciates the delicacy of that answer. Not calling him fat, not demanding he do it, but supportive as well. "Nope. Not by a longshot."

"So, I saw you talking to Ziva while washing dishes. Did she tell you?"

He turns to face her, leaning butt against the dresser, his hands wrapping around her waist, pulling her hips flush to his. "You knew?"

"Sure." Abby wraps her hands around his neck and quickly kisses him. "She told me the day after she realized she had three more pills than she should have had. That's the kind of thing girls tell each other. You notice something like that, it's awfully scary, so you want to have someone to talk to. Breena probably knows, too."

"You ever have a scare like that?"

Abby shook her head. "When it comes to birth control careful is my first, middle, and last name. Just like your first time with no condom was with me, when the Depo wears off, my first no birth control time will be with you."

He smiles at that, feeling just ridiculously pleased at that idea.

They stand there for a minute, holding each other, his forehead against hers, both of them enjoying the comfort of another body, a different skin, next to their own.

She lightly licks his lip, and then turns to look at the clock. He follows her gaze, 11:53. "I was thinking, Breena's asleep by now."

He nods, not exactly sure where this is going. But Breena was sleeping about ten minutes after the movie began, so now, three hours later, the idea that she'd still be sleeping makes an awful lot of sense.

"And if she's sleeping, Jimmy probably is, too."

"Okay." That makes sense, too.

"And I bet Ziva and Tony are in their room." They'd certainly headed in that direction when the movie was over.

"Probably."

"And their room doesn't overlook the beach."

"Also true." He's getting an inkling of where this might be going and starts to smile.

"Wanna go skinny dipping with me?" Abby asks, huge grin on her face.

"Yeah." He nods as he says that, and leans over to grab his jeans.

"What are you doing?"

"Naked on the beach is one thing. Naked walking through the house where there's four other people, something else all-together."

She laughs at that, and steps back from him while he pulls on the jeans.

Abby stares at him for a moment, eyes tracing up and down his body. "I like that."

"What?"

She hooks her thumbs into the belt loops on his jeans. "You, wrist cuff, tattoos visible, jeans, low and still undone, bare feet. We might be doing more than swimming."

He smiles. "You mean there was a chance we wouldn't have?"

She grins. "No."

She lets go, and he watches her head to the door, hips swinging with each step. "Aren't you going to put something on?"

She looks over her shoulder, grabs the towel that's hanging on the door knob and slings it over her shoulder. "Nope."

He laughs and follows.

There are four bedrooms on the top floor. (As Breena said, one for her and each of her sisters, and one for her parents.) They've got the one furthest down the hallway. It shares a bathroom with the room across from it, but no one is in that one.

Tony and Ziva are on the other side of the hall, and walking quietly past their room, they hear nothing. The Palmers are in the master bedroom, right next to the stairs, and Tim giggles silently as he hears soft voices saying nothing with words.

Abby mouths at him, "Or not sleeping," a huge smile on her face.

He nods, grinning.

He's two steps further down the staircase when he comes to a stop. The voices he's hearing now are very much not Jimmy and Breena, though from the sound of them, something pretty similar is occurring.

Abby stops right behind him, pressed against his back. Also hearing the same thing he is.

The door is fifteen steps (eight down, seven forward) in front of them. The great room is right next to them, but right this second, still shielded from view by the wall of the staircase. He can imagine, based on what he's hearing, where Tony and Ziva are. The sofa or one of the recliners. They might, depending on what position they're in, be facing away from the staircase.

If the front door was open, this would be a fairly easy decision. Just walk quietly out. But it's not open. It's closed and locked. So getting out will take at least a few seconds and make a little noise.

He turns to her, question in his eyes. After all, he's not the one who's naked.

She whispers into his ear. "Not like he hasn't seen me naked before."

"Yeah, but Ziva might not appreciate the audience." He whispers back.

"If she didn't want the chance of an audience, they'd be in their room, like Jimmy and Breena."

He nods. There is that. Though, at least in his experience, the chance of an audience is a lot more fun than an actual audience.

He takes two more, quiet, steps down and peeks around the wall. They're on one of the recliners, and from what he can see, they're both naked. Ziva's straddling Tony, rising and falling against him, her back toward them. If his eyes were open, Tony could see the door, but they aren't.

_Screw it. If they see, they see. _He'll stare Tony in the eyes and say something like 'Payback's a bitch, right Tony?'and head right out the door.

He gets to the door, quietly, and it seems like they haven't noticed. Getting it open makes what feels like a very loud clicking sound as the bolt slides out of the lock. He holds the door open and Abby shoots down the steps and out onto the porch.

And if Tony or Ziva noticed, they did a good job of not letting them know.

Abby drops the towel and wades into the surf. As he's shucking off the jeans he finds himself thinking that Abby was made for moonlit beaches. She's beyond lovely bathed in soft, milky white-blue light, skin wet and shining.

He's never made love outside before, or in water. Well, not ocean style water. The shower and the bath, sure, but water that moves on its own, that rocks and slips around and almost through you, that's different.

By the time they're shoulder deep, they're past the breakers, so there's just a sort of gentle rolling motion, and balancing with her wrapped around him is fairly easy.

Salt flavored kisses, water that supports, caresses, Abby's legs around his hips, her head back, skin sparkling with moon and starlight, and he's thinking maybe he does like the beach better than the mountains.

* * *

The girls were playing in the surf with Palmer while Tony and Tim messed around with the grill.

"Have a good swim last night?" Tony asked.

Tim grins. "Yeah. Catch a late movie?"

"Something like that." Tony laughed a little and then rips open the bag of charcoal, pouring the coals into the grill.

"So, you two ever get around to ropes and things?"

Tony nodded.

"You like it?"

Tony smiled and changed the subject. "That looks better than I thought it would," he said, looking at Tim's tattoo as Tim piled the coals the way Gibbs had showed him. When Tim had designed it, it was a fairly standard Celtic knot. Once Sam got ahold of the idea, he spread the strands out a bit, and used the negative space to make it look like the black lines were carved out of the skin, and the red ones wrapped around his arm. The final result made his arm look like carved ivory wrapped in red strands.

"Thanks. Amazing what someone who can actually draw can do with an idea."

"Yeah."

"Did it hurt?" He was kind of surprised Tony would ask that.

"Yeah. It hurt. It's like... like someone poking you with a needle tens of thousands of times."

"And you've got two of them." It occurred to Tim that Tony does not, at least to the best of his knowledge, have any tattoos.

"Yep."

"For her?" Tim was getting the idea that this is going somewhere beyond skin art, but he's not sure where Tony wants to take it.

"The first one was mostly for me, she was just the final push that got me moving. The second one was for her."

"What's with the wrist cuff? You don't take it off."

"Abby gave it to me." True enough, even if that wasn't the whole story.

"You are turning into such a Goth."

Tim looked at himself, black swim trunks, which he would have worn no matter what, black is his default color for swimwear, and a gray t-shirt, a skull with a rose coming out of one eye in black over a white arabesque across the stomach, chest and one sleeve. (Gift from Abby, but he really likes it.) Black leather wrist cuff with a silver snaps. The sleeves on the t-shirt were short enough that the bottom of the cuff tattoo was visible, even though the Python one is hidden. It occurred to him this is probably who he would have been in college if he'd been confident enough in himself to do it.

He shrugged, looking at Abby in her black tankini, actually playing in the sunlight. Sure he had spent several happy minutes rubbing SPF 70 sunblock on her, but, to the best of his knowledge, this weekend was the first time in years that she had been out to play in the sun.

"Not turning, it's always been there. But more of mine is coming out, and hers is taming down a bit."

"By which you mean she hasn't spent the entire day in the shade?"

"Something like that." Tim looked Tony over and thought he might know where this conversation is supposed to go. "Besides the bigger bed, any changes you're making for Ziva?"

"I spent four hours researching what's involved in converting to Judaism last week."

That stunned Tim. It's vastly more serious than anything he thought might have been going on with Tony, of course, almost dying probably did get him thinking some serious thoughts. It certainly had for Tim. "Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as a change. Does she know you're thinking..."

"Not yet. That's the sort of thing I'd like to have my own mind made up on before talking to her about. Think God'll forgive me if I sneak the occasional bacon cheeseburger?"

"I doubt He'd mind." He'd never talked religion with Tony, and honestly isn't sure how much he believes or doesn't. But in that Tim, at his absolute best, most reverent can get to the point of admitting that he just doesn't know if there's a God, he felt fairly comfortable in the idea that a likely non-existent God doesn't care about bacon.

Tony lit the grill, and they watched the flames. "Not so sure about the circumcision thing."

That really startled Tim. "Ummm weren't you already..." Yeah, he's been in the men's room with Tony, but he's never looked. One thing straight guy do not ever do is look. But since most American guys are, the idea that Tony might not be had never occurred to Tim.

"Yeah, but they still want a few drops of blood, from, you know..."

"Okay..." That was something Tim didn't want to think too hard about.

"How long did that tat take?"

"Four hours." Okay, in light of that, feeling a bit queasy about a drop or two of blood was probably silly. Still the idea of anyone with a knife getting that close to his privates made Tim feel squirmy.

"How long to heal up?"

"About three weeks."

Tony seemed to think about that as well. "And you got it for her?"

"With her. A sign, one that can't be taken off or changed, that I'm hers and she's mine."

Tony nodded.

* * *

They were sitting on the porch, just having finished dinner, talking about something. Tim doesn't remember what, now. He was sprawled on one of the lounges, Abby's laying down, her head on his lap, feet dangling off the side. Ziva sat on the floor between Tony's outstretched legs, leaning against his chest. Breena was laying on her side, Palmer sitting behind her, his hand gently resting on the curve of her stomach.

It was fun. It was happy and peaceful. And of course, it didn't last.

Palmer's phone rang first. Tony's a hair behind it. By the time that happened the other four of them were already starting to pack up.

Tim was in their room, stuffing clothing into their bag. Abby's phone was less than a foot away when it began to buzz.

"We're on our way."

"McGee?" Director Vance on the phone, not expecting to hear Tim's voice.

"Yeah. What's going on? Tony and Palmer have already gotten their calls. Abby's dousing the grill, so I picked up for her."

"Train versus troop transport north of Richmond. The train won. How long until you can get there?" Leon asks.

"Four hours?"

That seems to make Vance think. "Are any of you sober?"

"Ziva is. And the rest of us will be by the time we get there."

"Okay. Put your lights on and get moving."

"I don't think we have any."

He can feel the look Vance must have on his face. "Why would you not have flashers?"

_For the same reason we don't have guns or badges, we're on vacation! _"We just don't. We're not dressed for it either. Make sure someone has extra coveralls and boots for us."

"Fine. What are you driving?"

"We'll be in Palmer's car, since we've all got to get to the same place. Abby'll take hers to the lab." He doesn't add that Breena will likely end up driving Ziva's Mini home, because that's nothing Vance needs to know.

"Okay, I'll get a BOLO out on your cars. Floor it. No one is going to slow you down."

* * *

Getting through the police line was a bit of a challenge. No badges, no guns, and the four of them dressed for the beach. Finally a nervous looking junior agent radioed in and got the permission for the four of them to enter.

Entering, they found it was exactly as bad as you'd expect a train crash to be.

"Watch your step," Palmer said staring at millions of shards of glass and twisted metal. "We'll get our feet cut to ribbons if we aren't careful."

They found Ducky first. "Mr. Palmer, you are underdressed," Ducky says, looking at Palmer in a swim suit, Hawaiian shirt, buttoned for the first time all weekend, and flip flops.

"I'm dressed exactly the way I should be for what I'm supposed to be doing." Jimmy says as he steps into a pair of coveralls. "We were supposed to have today and tomorrow off. Even with Ziva driving"— And she had gotten frighteningly close to setting the land speed record for the trip from the Outer Banks to north Richmond. Twice they had seen flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror, to see, a minute later, those lights turn off.—"going home to get more appropriate clothing would have added two hours to the trip. I assumed you'd prefer I was here fast rather than in a tie."

"Correct." Ducky nodded.

"I'll grab some boots from the transport and be ready to go in a sec," he said, heading toward the body transport, grumbling about how every time he tries to take a vacation the world conspires against him.

Gibbs just looked at them, Tim and Tony in t-shirts and swim trunks, Ziva in a pair of shorts and a bikini top, all of them but Tony in flip flops, quirked one eyebrow, and then got them up to speed as they too hopped into coveralls and borrowed boots. Troop convoy heading from DC to Norfolk. The first transport went through the intersection, the second one got clobbered by the train, and no one could figure out why the guard rail didn't go down.

CSX was claiming the guard rail was working perfectly and that the signal was, according to their computers, down. The driver of the first vehicle and the third said it was up. The conductor said he was blasting the horn, but neither the first or third driver claimed to have heard it.

No one knew if it was a malfunction, sabotage, suicide/homicide by train, or if the drivers really just hadn't noticed.

What they did know was that twenty-four Marines had been on that transport, and as of right now, only three of them were still alive.

Every NCIS agent out of the Navy Yard was on duty, along with ten from Norfolk and another ten from Baltimore. It was time to get to work.

* * *

Forty-two hours later, the case was closed and they were standing in Vance's office. He had gathered them around the conference table, where there was a map of the east coast, with a circle around the DC area extending to Baltimore in the north and Richmond in the south.

Leon stared at each of them, rubbing his eyes. He looked just as exhausted as they all felt. They'd had just enough time to run home and change, grab a little food, but that was it. Everyone had been working full out for almost two straight days.

"I have checked with Legal, and they tell me that your off time is your own. That I cannot, in fact, order you to do anything when you are off duty. So I am asking you, as a personal favor, that when you decide three quarters of my best Major Case Response Team, half of my Autopsy department, and my entire Forensic lab should all go off on vacation together, that you please stay within an hour and a half of the Navy Yard." Leon points to the map. "There are many fun and interesting things to do in the greater DC area. Please, do them!"

Several quite versions of 'Yes sir' issued out of the five of them, then Leon dismissed them, and they went to their respective homes to drop from exhaustion.


	62. Kids

"Have you talked to Ziva?" Tim asks as he steps into the bathroom. "Oh, God, that smells like toxic waste. How can you stand to have that on your head?"

Abby looks up from rubbing the dye into her hair.

"You get used to it after a few times, and for me, a few times was back in the mid-nineties."

"Okay..." He opens the window. "So, have you?"

"I talked to Ziva today."

"And..." It'd been a week since they got back from the beach and he doesn't want to be constantly badgering Ziva, but he is certainly curious.

"No baby."

He sighs with relief. "And Tony dodges the invisible bullet."

"Something like that."

"Is she going to tell him she might have been?" he asks.

"I don't know. I didn't ask. You aren't, are you?"

"NO! The idea of you pregnant just about freaks him out. Ziva pregnant is probably a full on, curled into a ball, rocking back and forth, whimpering panic attack."

"Me pregnant?" Abby looks curious as she works more of the dye into her hair.

"Yeah. We talked about it a little when he helped me move. He seemed pretty freaked out. He'll be a friendly grown-up for Palmer's kid. But he'll be an uncle to ours, and that's already one degree of separation too close for him right now."

"Why do kids frighten him?"

"I don't know. I've never asked."

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe. Could make for an entertaining next stakeout."

"If she had been, you think he would have been okay?"

"Eventually. And if he needed something that scared him more than a baby to get him right, I would have held a gun to his head until he was."

Abby starts to smile, and then notices that Tim isn't joking.

He shrugs a little—No way in Hell he'd let Tony walk away, no matter how scared he might be—and reaches for his toothbrush, ready to change the subject. "I got my yearly email from human resources telling me that if I don't use up some of my vacation days, I'm going to lose them."

NCIS does allow you to save up vacation days. It does not allow you to save them for more than three years at a go. So, in that he's never used up a full year's worth of vacation days, each year for the last six years they've sent him an email telling him his days from three years previous are about to expire.

"I've got forty-three vacation days saved up, and I'm willing to bet you've got even more. How about we use some of them to go somewhere?"

"What is this vacation thing of which you speak?"

"It's this crazy idea that you take a little time, and don't go to work. You go do something fun. How about it? You, me, somewhere where the leaves change colors and fall actually happens."

She thinks about that for a minute. "I'd have to give them enough notice to find someone to cover the lab for me."

"So, say, I don't know, a week, maybe two, just you and me, in October."

"You think we could actually take ten days off?"

"I don't think it's impossible." By which he means that they'll both have their computers and likely end up working at least some. "Think about it, Tony and Gibbs used to solve crimes with only Kate. They can probably get along for two weeks without me. And if they can find someone who's half decent with the lab—"

"Simmons out of Norfolk is pretty good."

"Like Simmons, then maybe you could leave for a while, too."

"Where would we go?"

"I was thinking Texas. I'd like to introduce you to my mom and step-dad."

"Taking me home to meet the parents?"

He smiles and puts the toothpaste on his brush. "One parent, one step-parent, and I've never lived in their house, so it's not precisely home, but yeah, that's the general idea."

She smiles at that. "I'd like to meet your mom and step-dad." She thinks about it. "If we got two weeks off, we could swing by New Orleans and you could meet Luca, Melody, and Harper."

"That sounds good."

* * *

Four days later he was on a stakeout with Tony, staring at yet another building where absolutely nothing was happening.

"So, what is it with you and kids?" Tim asked.

"That's out of the blue."

"Thinking about Palmer, and baby Palmer. And wondering if you can get all the way through the christening without a panic attack."

"I'll be fine."

"Good." Tim sits there quietly, watching the building, hoping Tony will take the opening and just talk about it, because he's not going to ask again.

"They don't bug me as much as they used to."

"That's good. You still looked pretty creeped out seeing Breena's tummy."

"She's got a person in there. It's creepy."

"We're mammals, Tony. That's just how it works."

"I know that. Doesn't make her having a kid in there any less weird."

"I suppose."

Tony's staring out the window, using the binocs, not that he needs them really, the curtains are closed, so they can't see in.

He doesn't put them down or look away when he says, "They're loud and messy and always sort of damp or sticky. And you never know what one of them is going to do, so you've always got to be watching."

"True enough." That matched his memories of when Sarah was little pretty well, but he's fairly sure this is just Tony warming up to getting to the real reason.

"They smell bad, too."

Tim shrugs. "Sometimes. All people do."

"Kids need you."

Tim nods. And there is it.

"They really need you. All the time, no matter what. You don't get sick days or vacations. If you get bored or scared, you can't leave because they still need you."

Tim nods at that, too.

"Get bored and leave, get scared and leave, that's sort of my MO. I don't like being needed. That's part of why Ziva and I work. She doesn't need me. She loves me, she wants me, and if I screw this up, it'll hurt, but it won't break her. But you leave a kid, and you break them."

Tim thinks that Tony might be selling himself short on that, but he's not sure, and figures that by this point Tony knows Ziva better than he does. "You need her."

"Yeah, I do, and that scares the hell out of me, too. But we're talking kids, right?"

"Yeah."

"If either of our dads had given a crap about us, do you think we'd be so tied to Gibbs?"

Tim shrugs, he knows for a fact that needing a dad is a big part of why he's still at NCIS, and definitely why he's still in the Major Case Response Team. "Abby adores him, and her dad was around."

"But he's not anymore."

"True. At least your dad is trying."

"Yeah, he is. That scares me, too."

"Why?"

"He's seventy-eight. And if we get close, that means one day I'll have to say goodbye to him for real."

"It'll hurt, no matter how it happens. Ziva hadn't even seen her dad in two years when he died, and we both saw her when..." He lets that trail off, the memory of Ziva weeping over her father still bright in his mind. "You might as well try to get something you can enjoy now."

"Probably. But anger would be easier than sorrow." Tony lets that idea linger for a moment and then says, "Every time I see him lately, I see the man I'm afraid I'll become. It's not like I don't see the similarities. Not like I look at him and can't feel the part of me that's like him."

"How do you mean?"

"I know my mom was the love of his life. And I know he fucked around on her."

Tim looks surprised, best he knows Tony was thirteen when his mom died, and that's the sort of thing you hopefully don't know about until you're older. "How do you know that?"

"I caught him, once. At the time, I was too young to know what I had seen, and him telling me that his secretary was helping him find something under his desk made sense, but once I got older, learned what a blow job was, I figured it out."

"Eww."

"Yeah, that was nasty. A new step-mom every three years didn't much help with that, either. And he fucked around on them, too. I don't want to be him, but I can feel it. I'm out with Ziva, who is the most beautiful woman anyone has ever seen in real life. I mean, come on, who gets a Ziva in real life? Zivas exist on TV and in movies so that we can dream about them. And, though only God alone knows why, she loves me. But when I'm out with her, I still look. I still find myself thinking about the women around me. I go out with you and Palmer, and you aren't looking. You're all wrapped in clouds of eternal devotion and fidelity or whatever, and I feel like a horny idiot because I'm checking out the waitress."

Tim pulls up his sleeve and takes his watch off. Then he takes Tony's hand—Tony looks especially startled by that.—and places his fingers on his pulse. "Feel that?"

Tony nods, looking really disturbed.

"I am devoted, but I'm not dead, let alone blind. I check out the waitress. So does Palmer. Hell, so does Abby if she's hot enough." Tony takes his hand back as his eyes go wide.

"Abby likes girls?"

Tim smiles. "Some of them."

"Have you two ever..."

"Nah. Just the two of us, and it'll stay that way. She tells me she's okay with a girl joining in, as long as I'm okay with a guy, and, well, I'm not."

Tony nods. "Yeah, that'd be a deal breaker for me, too."

Tim nods and puts his watch back on. "Anyway, the point is, we all look, we all think, we don't all do. It's just part of being alive. Though it's nice to know I'm subtle enough at it you haven't noticed me doing it."

"I feel like I'm out with a couple of married, Mormon, Boy Scouts when I'm with you and Palmer."

"Jimmy and I spent high school and college getting shot down. And if you're pretty sure a girl is going to respond to you checking her out by slapping your face, you get really good at looking and not getting caught.

"So you're saying your stealth ogling technique is self-preservation?"

"Something like that. A woman catches me looking, it's because I want her to. So, these days, only Abby catches me."

Tony thinks about that, seems to appreciate it.

"Still, I also try to limit temptation. Like, okay, I haven't been in the break room for a while, because that's where the cookies and candy are, and it's a whole lot easier to not eat the cookies if I don't see them."

"Makes sense."

"So I don't go to bars by myself. I don't flirt with anyone other than Abby. All of my female friends that I spend time alone with are married or so close it doesn't matter. And sure, I'm still looking and still thinking—You might think pregnant Breena is creepy, but I sure as hell appreciated her in that bikini.—but I'm not going to do anything about it, and that's all that matters."

Tony's giving him the _are you insane look._ "Breena in the bikini?"

"Oh yeah!" Tim nods enthusiastically.

"You are one sick puppy."

"Did you somehow not see her boobs?" Tim is gesturing as he says this in a way that gets across exactly what about said boobs impressed him.

"You like them big?"

"Big, small, in between, they're all good. I have yet to see a breast I didn't like. And I noticed hers were especially fine in that little green bikini."

"Okay, yeah, that was nice."

"All of her is nice. And so is Ziva."

"Yeah, she really is. Wait, you were checking out Ziva?"

Tim rolls his eyes. "Not blind, not dead." He shakes his head a little. "Super-hot Israeli assassin turned Federal Agent playing in the surf in a wet bikini in front of me, let alone screwing on a recliner, and, yeah, I'm looking. You gonna tell me you weren't looking at Abby naked on the beach?"

"I did not look at Abby naked on the beach. Mostly because Ziva was standing right next to me. I did however look at Abby, naked, sprinting down the steps, and I most certainly looked at Abby in a bathing suit on the beach." Tony smiles. "I didn't know she had that many tattoos."

"I think there's fourteen of them."

Tony looks puzzled. "You don't know?"

Tim shoves him gently. "I know exactly what she has on her skin, but like, she's got the two little angels on her shoulders, they're a matched set she got at the same time, so is that one tat or two? Or the stitch marks on her arm, there are nine of them, one tat or nine?"

"Got ya."

They sit there quietly watching the house.

"You ever wonder if you have any kids?" Tony asks.

"Rarely. Every woman I've slept with has known how to get a hold of me if she wanted to. And I've always been careful."

Tony nods. "I do. More than enough women who didn't know how to get a hold of me later, not always careful, and even careful doesn't work all the time."

"Condoms work something like 98% of the time, and you've been dodging that bullet for years?"

"That too."

More quiet. Tim gets the idea that Tony's half-hoping someone will move in that house and kill what he's saying, and half-hoping to get it out.

"I see kids, and I think about how many I may have failed. How many brown-haired, hazel-eyed people are out there without a dad? My first time, I was sixteen, snuck into a frat party, hooked up with a girl, both of us drunk, no condom, never got her name, never saw her again. For all I know there's a twenty-eight-year-old out there somewhere with my eyes."

Tim shrugs, not sure how to be comforting for something like this.

Tony shakes his head. "Hell, I've been at this long enough it's possible I have grandkids. In college, my team made it to March Madness all four years, final four two of them. Girls all over the place. Two, three a night if I wanted them, and trust me, I did. Spring break, more orgies.

"Anyway, I was with Jeanne, and she took me to a baby shower for one of her girlfriends, and there were kids all over the place, and that's when it finally hit me: sex makes babies. And babies are a ton of work. Dumb, right?"

Tim nods a little, not unkindly, but aware that Tony would deal better with a little teasing to break the intensity of this. "Yeah, I had that figured out by the age of nine."

"And since then, kids have scared me, I've been much more careful, and my dad sleeping with every woman he can catch disgusts me. Because, for all I know, I've got a dozen half-brothers and sisters all over the world, also all without a dad.

"So that's it. That's the thing with me and kids."

Tim nods. If this was Palmer, he'd probably give him a hug. But it's Tony, and Tony would think that was weird, so he doesn't know what to do besides hope that someone moves out of that house and gives them a way to get out of this.

Maybe God was listening, maybe it was just luck, either way a blue Suburban pulled up and three guys got out, which meant he and Tony had something else to think about.


	63. Sunday Morning

Sunday mornings. Tim likes them. Okay, he likes Saturday mornings better, because they don't have anything scheduled on Saturday mornings, but Sunday mornings with a slow, easy, wake-up-whenever vibe, followed usually by sex and breakfast out, are awfully good too.

Granted, Mass usually comes after breakfast, and that's not his favorite thing ever. They make it about two or three times a month, and sometimes when work interferes in too many weekends in a row, end up at Wednesday night Mass instead of Sunday morning.

Tim doesn't resent going to Mass. He meant it when he told Abby that being there for the things that are important to her was something he was going to do. It's just not his favorite thing. Mostly he treats it as a combination of a chance to people watch and just think. An hour or so a week where he can just run his book or whatever niggling bits of whatever case they're working on through his mind is a good thing, so he takes advantage of it. Sure it's not as comfortable as doing it at home in his jammies, (he doesn't sleep in them anymore, but they're still comfy for lounging) but it's still good.

They don't exactly fit into a tidy group within the St. Sebastian's demographics. There are couples their age, but they tend toward married with multiple children. There are unmarried couples, but they tend to be younger or much older. He's spotted a few engagement rings, which he figures is the group they most readily fit into, but like with the rest of the unmarried couples, they tend to be in their twenties, and some of them are barely out of high school.

So he has noticed they get the occasional curious glance. Though how much of that is Abby being Abby and him being him—usually in a suit, and yeah, Sister Rosita says casual is okay, but it feels weird for him to be there in jeans.—and how much is the fact that they are clearly together, clearly lovers, and very clearly not wearing wedding rings, he doesn't know.

He's been going since Christmas. Which is long enough to get to know, at least well enough to nod and chat for a moment, each of the four priest assigned to St. Sebastian's. Round about New Year's Father John—Who he actually rather likes. The man is very pleasantly mellow with a nicely dry sense of humor.—came to chat with him. He understood the point of the first conversation. Abby really is part of this church; it's part of her extended family, and John was giving him a very laid back version of 'you've brought a new boyfriend home to meet the parents,' wanting to know who he was, how he fit with Abby, what his intentions were, and when that wrapped up he started of a short lecture on the value of receiving instruction in the Catholic faith which Tim stopped short by saying he had been confirmed back in '85.

Which then started the why-don't-you-take-communion, everyone-is-welcome conversation.

Which then started the current situation where every six weeks or so one of the priests drifts over to him to chat with him about it.

So, as Mass wraps up and they're heading toward the exit of St. Sebastian's and Father Peter wanders over to say hi, he knows what's coming next. Peter will casually nudge him away from Abby and the rest of the congregation for a little chat.

It'll be polite and gentle. No hard sale tactics here, just a nice little reminder that they're always here for him should he feel the need to talk or pray.

But he figures with as close to dead as he was last month, if he hadn't felt the need for faith then, it was remarkably unlikely to just show up now.

So, he's preparing his usual polite brush off, when Father Peter throws him for something of a loop.

"I was wondering if you and Abby had given any thought to marrying."

He's giving the Priest a wary look. "Yes."

"Good, good. It sends the wrong message when a couple like you, so clearly in love," though he gets the sense that what Peter really means is _so clearly sleeping together_, "don't marry."

"The wrong message? Seriously?" If this was anyone else, he probably would have answered with "I'm getting the ring made as we speak, and intend to be engaged by the end of the month," but that approach just hit him wrong. It was too close to too many arguments with his dad. "Anyone who's here often enough to have noticed how 'in love' we are, is also here enough to notice that I come two-three times a month entirely because it matters to Abby. If you aren't blind, you've noticed I don't take Communion, so the fact that I'm here at all should speak pretty loudly about my intentions. And if messages matter, that one should be loud and clear."

"It is, but there's more than just a message here..." And Peter gets going on the sanctity of marriage and the importance of the Sacrament, and well, Tim's sure he's not doing it on purpose, but he manages to hit just about all of his arguing-with-dad-buttons.

Tim takes a breath and calms himself down. He hasn't spent hours arguing with Peter, and it's not his fault that he's got unpleasant history with authority figures trying to make him jump through hoops for symbolic but empty gestures. And it's not even that he disagrees with the main thrust of what Peter is saying, he believes wholeheartedly in the value of binding your life to your woman's and being there for the long run, he just doesn't see how a Priest saying words over them magically makes them any more committed than they already are. He also doesn't think words make a commitment. If words alone could do it, sitting in the bathroom, promising to come home was the moment it happened. But it's not the words, it's the actual coming home, day after day, year after year, that does it.

He's not sure how to, or if he really wants to, explain that his dad and mom said the words, and had the Priest bless them, but it didn't matter because his dad didn't come home. So he decides to stay on the general side of the idea, rather than specific to him.

When Peter winds down on the beauty of a true commitment and the need for that, Tim says, "You've officiated what, hundreds of weddings?"

"Thousands probably."

"Okay. How many divorces? How many?" and Tim looks over at a few couples who by their body language are clearly still together out of spite. "A third? A half?"

Father Peter thinks about it, and Tim appreciates the fact that the man is trying to be honest with him. "Between a quarter and a third."

Tim nods. "Once upon a time, just declaring yourself married was enough. You spoke your intent to be husband and wife, to live together for the rest of your life, and that did it." Peter looks ready to interrupt, but catches Tim's look, and doesn't. "You see that tattoo on her arm?" Abby's laughing with her nuns. She sees him and smiles. Tim smiles back and realizes that with Abby 'tattoo on her arm' is not a terrifically specific statement, she's got a ton of tattoos on her arms, and the little pink sundress she's wearing shows all of them off. "The black and red one on her right arm?"

Peter nods.

"That's my mark. I designed it. It's on my arm, too. That'll be on both of us for the rest of our days. Married isn't, or at least, shouldn't, be just about one day of I-dos. It's not the words, it's the living. That mark, that's the first promise binding my life to hers. And one day, soon, I will make that promise to her again and seal it with a garnet and diamonds. I'll re-make that promise again, and seal it with a my name and kiss. I'll remake it every time we make a baby, and when I'm there for each one of those children's first breaths. I will live that promise every day for the rest of my life. And if Jesus doesn't like whatever order we end up doing that in, I honestly could not care less. We'll do it however we do it. And if I don't care what Jesus has to say about that, you can imagine how little I care about what anyone else does, either."

Peter thinks about that. Tim gets the idea that he rarely has this much trouble with potential grooms who aren't doing things the way they're supposed to. Of course, potential grooms who are here as often as he is are usually significantly more receptive to the whole God wants you to do this a certain way sort of message as well.

Peter stares at Tim, looking like he might respect Tim's answer, but it's not good enough. Finally, he says, "If you really feel that way, why aren't you married?"

"I think a better question is, in what way aren't we married?"

"Legally and religiously. In the eyes of man and God, you're just shacking up. If something happens to you, what about her, and those children you may have?"

"We've been each other's medical proxy since 2006." When Gibbs left, Abby had switched from him to Tim, and with his mom in Texas, and his sister only at Waverly during the school year, it made a whole lot of sense to have someone to act as Next of Kin for him nearby as well. So they set it up. "My will, life insurance, and pension are also set so that if something happens to me, her and any children we may have are taken care of. She's the second name on all of my bank accounts, and has access to my retirement accounts. So, if something happens to me, she'll be devastated, but financially, even if she didn't have a better paying job than I do, she'll be fine."

Peter didn't appear to be expecting that answer, and the look of wary respect grows, but he's not satisfied. "That's not enough. It's not about the cash. You can say it to each other all you want, you can make any promise you like and chose your own symbols, but until you stand before everyone who has ever mattered to you and swear on your life and hers that you will be there until you die, all you're doing is playing."

Tim shrugs. He remembers Ducky saying more or less the same thing at Palmer's wedding, and though he doesn't agree with it, he respects it none-the-less. "Engagement ring is supposed to be done in the next few weeks."

"Then I expect to see both of you here for pre-marital counseling sometime in November."

Tim looks a little startled at that. Peter smiles. "Six one hour-long sessions. It's required to get married here. And I'm going to assume, since she's been a member for thirteen years, that Abby wants to get married here."

"We haven't spoken about it specifically, but probably."

Father Peter smiled. "Good."


	64. Vacation

Sixteen days all to themselves. Ten work days and six weekend days. And yes, they pretty much had to swear a blood oath to be reachable at all times. And Tim would not be shocked if his car got bugged somewhere along the line so Gibbs could keep track of where they were.

The somewhat vague idea of meet the families morphed into load up the car and drive cross country since they had the time and neither of them much likes flying.

Sixteen days' worth of gear for Tim takes up one bag. Granted, he's assuming they'll be able to do laundry at Luca's and his Mom's place. So he doesn't have a ton of stuff.

The computer stuff takes up one more bag.

This leaves half of the trunk for Abby, which, well, let's put it this way, it's a very good thing that both of them are good at spatial relationships, because getting Abby's stuff in there practically required a bag of holding.

But, by 10:00 Saturday October 12th, the trunk was full, the tank was full, and they were heading south, New Orleans in mind.

* * *

They were about an hour south of DC when he said, "I've never been to New Orleans."

"Nawlins."

"What?"

"Nawlins. If you call it New Orleans," She mimicked his pronunciation, one that enunciated all the vowels and the r. "You might as well tattoo 'I'm A Yankee' to your forehead."

He shrugs a little at that. "I am a Yankee. Born in Maryland, raised mostly in California, school back in Maryland and Massachusetts." He thinks about that for a moment. "Why don't you have an accent?"

"I have an accent, everyone does."

He flashes her his mildly exasperated look. "Does everyone in Nalins—"

"Nawlins."

"I honestly cannot hear the difference."

"You need to sound like you know the letters are there, and just sort of smooth them out and blur them together."

"Nalins."

She shakes her head and sighs. "Just keep calling it New Orleans. You just killed that."

"Fine. Does everyone in _New Orleans_" he stresses his yankee pronunciation, "sound like you?"

She thinks about that. "Not anymore. The way I used to speak said I was well-educated and white. So, that was a whole lot closer to the way you talk than say Louisiana Bayou speech. Add in the prejudice against a pronounced drawl—" She sees him looking like that's never occurred to him. "How you speak is directly correlated to how intelligent people think you are, and a thick Southern accent says ignorant hick to a lot of the world."

"Really, you think that?"

"You went to two top tier schools, how many Southern accents did you hear?"

"Almost none."

"Any western or mid-west accents?"

"Not really."

"Everyone more or less sounded like they came from California, like you?"

"A lot of them. Lots of Asian accents, too. MIT had a decent number of Brahmin accents."

"Brahmin?"

"High class Boston."

"Okay. Do you think almost no one at those schools was from the south, west, or mid-west?"

"Good point."

"Anyway, even at LSU or Georgia State, sounding like you're an extra from Gone With The Wind meant people didn't take you as seriously. So, by the time I had my Masters, my accent had gotten pretty generic Hollywood-speak."

"Hollywood-speak?"

"Yeah, everyone sounds like they're from California now because that's where all the actors are, and we're all watching TV, movies, and listening to them in bands."

"Hmmm... Never thought about that." And so, for the next fifty miles, they talked about accents and how the internet and movie age had been changing them.

* * *

They stopped in Atlanta the first night, and it was there that it occurred to Tim how traveling was going to test his diet resolve.

Not snacking was easy enough. They'd stop for gas, he'd pump it, not go into the convenience store, and not feel like he wanted a candy bar. No problems. She'd come back with coffee for him, a CaffPow or whatever the local equivalent was, and off they'd go.

Eating less at meals was trickier. There was all this lovely food, all over the place, and most of it was the sort of thing they didn't have in DC so, if he didn't eat it now, he wasn't going to get a shot at it later.

And while it's true fried Okra didn't rock his world (kind of slimy), the fried pickles did, and not eating the whole basket of them was something of a challenge.

To make matters worse, he loves barbeque, and they were going to spend the next week driving through all different sorts of it. And he wants to try them all. The little side of the road shack they found in North Carolina, where the pulled pork was mustardy and vinegary was excellent. And it looked like here in Georgia everything was hot and smoky and sweet.

He'd said goodbye to six pounds between Labor Day and today, and he had the sinking suspicion a bunch of them were going to come back before they got home.

* * *

Sunday morning driving was perplexing to Tim. First off, the traffic. There was tons of it. Secondly, for some reason a lot of the trucks/campers they were passing had some sort of very large, cylindrical, black things on pallets riding behind them.

"Okay, what is that?" he finally asked when they passed the third one.

Abby looked at it for a second. "Auburn versus 'Bama I think."

"Huh?" That answer meant literally nothing to him.

"College football. Those are smokers, and they're heading to the game for tailgating followed by football."

"People bring their own smokers to football games down here?" Okay, he's familiar with bringing a cooler with drinks and stuff, but a smoker? That thing on the pallet whizzing by them looks big enough to handle a whole pig, not just a few burgers and hot dogs.

"And races."

"Why?"

"It's fun. You go, you set up camp, get cookin', you eat, then watch your team do battle. Stadiums for college teams down here seat 100,000."

"People are really into football down here, aren't they?" He was the guy in the Beaver costume at MIT, which means he was about as into college football as a spectator could get, and he never saw anything even remotely like that. Granted, in the Ivy League they tended to play other teams like CMU (The Tartans, and if a Beaver is a less-than-dignified mascot, try being the walking piece of plaid.) or Harvard (Crimson. Seriously, no one in their conference got the whole mascot concept. He kept waiting for the day they'd end up playing a team with a huge fuzzy calculator running around on the other side.)

"Yeah." A few more miles pass by and she asks, "You ever notice how something like a third of the cars in our parking lot have Tech or Cavaliers bumper stickers?"

Tim nods. Okay, yeah, he'd noticed that. It didn't much make any impact on him. Just one of those things, like having to get a new registration and license, that changed when he moved from Maryland to Virginia.

"Once you get into an area that stops having pro teams, college football becomes a very big deal. All of those stickers are our neighbors saying which team is theirs."

"Huh. I though we just had a lot of alumnae in our building."

"That, too."

* * *

From what Tim could tell, every single person in the state of Alabama had decided to go to that game, which meant it took them close to four hours longer than expected to get to New Orleans.

The house he pulled up in front of looked more like a Victorian mansion than a house. It was a vast sprawling concoction of gingerbread detailing, huge open windows with wrought iron balconies, surrounded by a gracious porch lined with tables and rocking chairs. From what he could see it took up the entire block in front of them.

"Abby, what does your brother do?"

"You're looking at it."

He noticed the sign in front of the house a moment later. Richard's 1882.

"It's a bed and breakfast," she said with a smile. "The best in New Orleans. He's been running it for the last six years."

* * *

He wasn't sure what to expect from Luca. He'd seen pics, certainly heard stories, but never met the man in person.

Still, a rich baritone, curly brown hair, warm brown eyes, and an enveloping hug for Abby, with kissed cheeks while saying, "Chere!" wasn't what he figured he'd be seeing.

Tim offered his hand and got hugged none-the-less.

"Hello and welcome. I know Abby calls you McGee, but what is your preference? Tim, Timothy, McGee?"

"Tim or McGee are fine. Just about everyone calls me one of those two things."

Luca nods and seems to see behind Tim for the first time. "Oh, my Chere, your boy has beautiful taste in cars. What is that, the '08?"

"The '07."

"Beautiful." Luca's fingers trace delicately over the silver hood of Tim's car. "Mama and Papa ran a car salvage/junkyard, and when something beautiful and unique came in, Papa would rebuild it with us. He would have loved your car."

While Luca was checking out his car, Tim asked, "Why does he call you cher?"

"Mon Cheri. French. My dear. Everyone from around here speaks at least a little Creole. And Luca was in Paris for five years working as a chef, so for him it's even more pronounced."

"Okay."

* * *

There were other guests at Richard's (Ree chards, not Richards. Apparently if he could remember enough of his high school French lessons, he could probably figure out local pronunciations, but, well, he'd probably mangle them anyway. The fact that he can program in half a dozen languages in no way indicates much facility with any human language other than English.) but Tim and Abby were brought up to the third floor, Luca's private residence.

It was a tidy and comfortable apartment. And for as 1880s as the rest of the B&B was, the lines in Luca's private home were clean, modern, elegant.

"You must be tired, driving all day. Relax, rest. Tonight, dinner."

"Are you cooking?" Abby asks.

"Of course, Chere." Luca smiled. "Of course."

"Luca's the best cook you'll ever meet." She affectionately ruffled his hair.

"She is my sister, so she heaps on the praise."

"Emeril said the same thing about you. Is he also your sister?"

Luca smiled, wryly. "Last I checked, no. But with our parents, who were apparently full of many surprises, who can know?"

Abby nods.

"Emeril. The Emeril? The Bam guy?" Tim felt like he was a few turns behind in the game.

"Yes. Before taking on Richard's, I was one of his Sous Chefs."

"I'm sorry, I don't know what that means."

"I ran one of his kitchens."

"Oh."

"Seven years ago I hurt my knee water skiing, and since then I haven't been able to work as long or as hard as you need to to run one of his places. But when I was hurt, he introduced me to the owners here, and now I run Richard's."

As he finished that sentence, two voices, female, closed in on them. Abby lit up in a smile. She turned toward the sound as a tall blonde woman and a gangly brown-haired girl, teen, really, entered Luca's.

"Aunt Abby!"

"I told you she'd be here by the time we got home," the blonde said while Abby hugged the girl.

The woman hugged Abby as well, and then offered her hand to McGee. "I'm Melody, and this is Harper."

He took her hand while Abby said, "This is McGee."

"She calls you by your last name?" Harper asked, looking deeply intrigued by this idea.

Tim smiles, amused by the interest Harper is showing at this idea. "Most of the time."

"And what does she call you when she's not calling you McGee?"

Tim thought of many of the different things Abby called him, figured most of the non-McGee things she called him were not even remotely appropriate to repeat to her niece, and settled for, "Tim."

"Why do you call him McGee?"

"That's what Gibbs and Tony called him when we first met."

Harper nodded, she seemed to know who Gibbs was. "Does Gibbs call everyone by their last names?"

Tim was about to say yes when he realized that wasn't actually true. "Really, just Tony, Jimmy, and I."

"Dornaget."

Tim flashes her his perplexed look. "Did he start that, or is that what we called him because Gibbs calls us by our last names?"

Abby thought about that. "Huh... I don't actually know."

"So, he calls you Sciuto?" Harper asks.

"No, he calls me Abbs or Abby."

"And he doesn't call Ziva David. And he didn't call Kate Todd, so it's just us guys that get the last name treatment. The girls get called by their first names."

"Weird."

Tim shrugs. "You get used to it. Anyway, people on my team call me McGee. Everyone else calls me Tim."

"And fans call you Thom," Abby added.

"That too."

"You have fans?" Harper was really interested in that.

"I've written a few books. Some people liked them."

"Cool."

Melody looked at the two of them, saw the bags at their feet, and realized they hadn't gotten settled in yet. "Come on, she'll happily talk your ear off all night. Let's get you settled first."

"Are you staying in my room, Aunt Abby?"

Tim looked mildly surprised and amused by that idea. It occurred to him that he had no clue how Abby's presumably Catholic brother and sister-in-law would feel about him sleeping with her in front of her niece.

"I think your aunt and McGee would prefer to share a room," Melody said.

Tim nodded, and Abby smiled.

Harper narrowed her eyes. "She gets to sleep with her boyfriend! You won't let my boyfriend sleep over."

"And when you are thirty-nine, already sharing a home with your boyfriend, and bringing him home to meet us because you intend to marry him, you may sleep with him in my home, as well. Until then, no boys sleeping over!" Luca said with a fond smile.

Harper's expression indicated that she did not find that even remotely fair.

* * *

Their room was bright and simply furnished. Good, firm, sturdy bed, which Tim appreciated by lying full out on for a few minutes. He may love the Porsche, but he also loves really stretching out after sitting in it for ten hours a day.

After a minute he sat up, watching Abby standing on the balcony, arms resting on the wrought iron railing, eyes scanning the city around them.

A breeze caught the gauzy white curtains over the French doors, and he got a picture of her like that, looking away, framed by white fabric, afternoon sun low behind her.

It's a really good shot.

* * *

Dinner was amazing. He didn't get the name of everything they were eating, (and was sure he'd butcher the pronunciation of most of the things he did) but he was awfully certain that no matter what it was, if Luca was cooking it, he'd happily eat it.

Harper had been given permission to stay up late and hang out with them. Mostly asking about their work, what they did and how, and talking about school.

For Luca, morning began at 4:00, so he and Melody begged off close to nine.

And at midnight, when he was yawning, (Abby and Harper were going strong.) they went to bed and slept soundly.

* * *

A/N: Those of you who have been following this since the beginning might have noticed I've retconned Abby's age. Reasons for that should be abundantly clear in the not wildly distant future. Also screwed up the date they left, had to fix that, too.


	65. Faith

Luca had provided breakfast for the next morning, and Tim decided beignets and coffee, at least when made by Luca, was the best possible thing on earth, and eating them on the porch, soft and warm fall breezes whispering around them, was even better.

"Think Gibbs would like this?" Abby looks curious as he puts down his coffee cup. "The coffee. It's different, but good."

"It's got chickory in it."

"And that would be..."

"Burnt roots."

"Really?"

"Pretty much."

"Huh... It's tasty."

"Yep." She looks at her cup. "I don't know if he'd like it, but he'd probably like the idea that you thought about it."

Tim ponders that for a moment. "I'm not sure we have the kind of relationship where I get him presents. He'd probably like it from you."

"Oh no. Your idea. You give it to him. He likes presents." She says with a grin.

"When has anyone gotten him a present? I mean, besides you?"

"Tony got him that sex dust, right?"

"I don't think that was intentional."

"Rumor has it he liked it, though."

Tim smiles. "You're hooked into an entirely different rumor mill from me, aren't you?"

She winks. "What, Diane didn't tell you about that?"

He laughs. "I managed to keep her from talking about sex with any of her husbands. I've got to work with two of them, and with the way we keep bumping into each other, her current husband will likely come strolling through NCIS any day now."

"And you don't want the intimate details of any of their lives?"

"I don't need to know any more about what Gibbs is like in bed than I already do. I just don't," Tim says, shaking his head a little.

Abby looks curious, she might be hooked into a very interesting rumor mill, but intimate details of Gibbs' sex life are few and far between. "What do you already know about him?"

He flashes her a wry expression. "Mostly that the bruises on my wrists didn't freak him out, and that he had _really_ specific advice for how to pad my wrists. Also he built a bed that, according to him, you could hit with a truck and it'd still be in one piece, as a wedding present for Shannon."

"Hit with a horny Marine on leave for the first time in six months, you mean."

"He said, truck, but yeah, that was the subtext. Oh yeah. Taking me to Afghanistan was intentional. Something about appreciating coming home. And he's going to do it to Tony as soon as he gets the chance."

Abby nodded, giggling. "So, what do you want to do today?"

"Wander around? Show me your old haunts? See where you grew up? I'm flexible." She sighed at that and looked sad. "Don't want to go home without your parents there?" It was a good guess, it just happened to be wrong.

"I can't go home. Literally. It's gone. Katrina didn't just wipe out the Ninth Ward, a lot of the development on the coast washed away, and where we lived with my parents washed away with it."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It hadn't been ours for a long time. After they died, Aunt Gert sold the house and the yard. Used the money to put me through college, and let Luca apprentice in Paris. The only thing that's back there now is their graves."

He's not entirely sure how to respond to that. "Do you want to go see them?" He knows people do that from time to time. He doesn't entirely understand it, but there are a lot of things in the world he doesn't understand.

"Yeah, I would."

* * *

"We were hoping to go over to St. Benedicts," Abby says to Luca when they brought their plates in.

"See Mama and Papa?"

"Yeah."

"Then you should take my truck. Your beautiful car doesn't have enough clearance to handle the roads out there."

* * *

Tim was certainly aware of the idea of Hurricane Katrina. He saw lots of coverage, watched it fairly intently, wrote a pretty big check to the Red Cross, and watched how it affected Abby, but with all of that it wasn't real to him.

It was a bad thing that happened far away almost entirely to people he didn't know and never would.

It's a bit over eight years later and Beneaux, LA is a ghost town. And seeing it, empty buildings, roads half washed out, plants reclaiming the land, Katrina is becoming real to him.

They're bumping over a road that had likely been paved before the storm, but now was about a fifty-fifty mix between rutted dirt and patches of blacktop.

"It was a pretty tidy, healthy little town until '88. But one of the big shrimpers got sold and moved their base about twenty miles to the east. There was a canning plant until '90. When those two went, a lot of the town went with them.

"Luca and I had moved on by then. But we had friends here, people we'd talk to, tell us how things went. People with skills moved on, found new jobs, new homes. Those who didn't stayed, and kept things ghosting along. A tired and poor little town on the coast, mostly just scraping by on shrimp.

"Then Katrina came, and it got hit from both the Gulf and the lake. By then I didn't know anyone who lived here, but we saw the pictures. You could barely tell there was land under the water. It looked like a huge lake."

She pulls the truck over into what Tim can still identify as a church parking lot, though grass and weeds are eating the gravel paving. The building doesn't look like it's in terrible shape, but it also doesn't look like anyone's done anything with it in close to ten years.

"Luca says a lot of these places are condemned. Black mold. Water damage. Rot. You can't go in the buildings. But outside is safe enough, now."

She gets out, and he follows. For a moment she stands next to the truck, staring at a small, weedy graveyard. He takes her hand in his and waits.

She looks at him and flashes a quick smile. Or at least lifts the corners of her lips, her eyes don't look happy.

"You really want to do this?"

"Yeah. Haven't been back in fifteen years. Just getting oriented."

She starts off and he keeps pace. "Did you used to come a lot?"

"On their birthdays. On mine some years. Then I got the job in DC, and I haven't been back here since."

He nods, somewhat curious as to why she hasn't come back, but not wanting to press. She'll tell him if she wants him to know.

She stops them in front of a black granite stone. This one, like a lot of the stones near it, is tidy. The weeds have taken over the ground around it, but the patch right in front, and around the stone, is trimmed. Tim thinks Luca is probably the person who left the small pile of white stones on the corner of the grave and maintains the bit of grass around it.

Gloria Marie Sciuto March 5, 1940-July 17, 1987. Thomas John Sciuto June 16, 1942-July 18, 1987. Tim sees the difference in the dates and realizes that her dad must have lingered for a while. That it wasn't a quick and done affair.

He wraps his arm around her and kisses her hair.

"You've never asked me why I go to Mass," she says without looking at him.

"True." He looks away from the marker to her. He couldn't ever think of a good way, a polite way to say, 'So, come on, you're a scientist, what gives?'

"I can feel you wonder about it, sometimes. Especially when we have sex Sunday morning and then go together."

He nods. "It's crossed my mind. Not having sex with people you aren't married to, let alone living with them, was something they spent a lot of time beating into us when I was a teen."

She half-smiles at that. "Yeah, Sister Murphy was a stickler for that."

"Father Peter, too."

She shrugs a little. He had told her about their conversation when it happened. He waits for her to say more than that. She crouches down, her fingers brushing her father's name. He kneels next to her.

"Everything, everyone dies."

He nods at that and wraps his arms around her again.

"We all stop. We rot, and we vanish. Eventually even the bones will be gone. The Earth will swallow us whole, leaving nothing."

He kisses her.

"My parents are dead, Tim. I put them in the ground here almost twenty-five years ago. I'm a scientist. I work with Ducky and Jimmy. I know what happened to them down there. Less than two months ago, I almost put you in the ground. And if there's no God, then it didn't mean anything. It just happened, and now it's over. Them in my memory, in Luca's... The time we've had together. It isn't enough. If there's no God, then they're really gone, and one day you'll really be gone, and they can't be really gone, and you can't really go. I need them to still be there, somewhere."

He holds her tighter and kisses her again. Feeling her tears on his cheek.

"So, anyway, that's why I go to Mass. Faith in the promise that love is eternal and we will rise again." She half-smiles, eyes bright with tears, aware of how silly that might sound to him.

He kisses her again, and wipes away the tears with his thumb. "As long as you need it, I'll go with you."

"Thank you."


	66. Zyphyer

Most of the ride home was pretty quiet, but as they got closer to town, Abby began to perk back up. They dropped off the car and she took his hand. "Let me show you around."

From what he can see, New Orleans is the land of the Goths. Even when everyone is dressed normally, or at least a lot closer to him than to Abby, the whole place just feels gothic. Mansions, gardens, wrought iron balconies, snippets of Creole accented English or French and air laced with coffee and jazz. It's just gothic, in any and every meaning of that word.

Reality different here, like the world is older, richer. Like here, magic actually exists, and ghosts do wander among us. Here, Voodoo isn't just a few syllables and funny superstitions designed to keep the things that go bump in the night away.

Here is a world utterly unlike anywhere he's ever lived, and he finds it entrancing and a little uncomfortable. He's good with sterile and scientific, but this is dirty and beautiful. It's a world where emotion slides into front place and reason slowly lags behind.

He's out of his depths, so he surrenders to it, lets it absorb into him, and enjoys it.

* * *

"Were you serious about visiting some of my old haunts?" Abby asks the next day.

Tim shrugs, wondering why his bag is open and every piece of clothing out of it.

"Sure."

"We're gonna need to do some shopping."

"Where are we going?"

"Zyphyer."

"I have no idea what that is."

"Goth club. These," she holds up a pair of black jeans," should work. But you don't have a good shirt."

"Okay. Do I have to wear makeup?"

"It's a Goth club."

He nods. "Then we'll need some of that, too. I didn't bring my eyeliner, and I can't use yours, it irritates my eyes."

She puts the jeans down, pushes him onto the bed, and straddles him, holding his arms over his head, and leans in for a deep kiss.

"The fact that you _know_ you can't wear the same brand of eyeliner that I do is insanely hot."

He grins at her. "Really? Then let's add this to it. Think anyone around here sells black kilts?"

That earns him another wet, hot, and happy kiss. "Baby, we're in New Orleans. Anything you want, you can find here."

* * *

And find they did.

Back in DC when they do this, he usually goes for boots, jeans, t-shirt, collar, (And yes, he knows exactly what he's signaling when he wears it. He figures if they're in one of Abby's Goth clubs, it's appropriate.) and wrist cuff. And it works. But he didn't bring his collar, or any of the t-shirts he usually wears, or the boots. So why not start from scratch and have some fun with this?

It's true that standing next to DiNozzo and Ziva can sort of make Tim fade into the background or seem smaller than he actually is. Both of them have so much personality that he seems smaller next to them. But he's not a small man. He's 6'1" and, at last weigh in, 203 pounds.

Plus, Goths tend to go for kind of skinny, and he's more than aware enough to know that isn't him. So, a variation on the theme. Play up the fact that he's big and a man, not a wispy teenager with a death fetish.

Abby got into the idea awfully fast, and really seemed to appreciate the look he was going for.

The boots came to mid-calf and were gleaming black leather. The kilt was black, too, though there were silver rivets decorating the waistband. It even had pockets, which he appreciated. With a kilt, the plain gray t-shirt he had brought worked just fine, no need for a new one. Add in the wrist cuff he always wore, and he was dressed.

Like always, he lets Abby do his makeup. Yeah, he's done his own before. (Live action role playing, nothing weird, thank you very much.) But it's been a long time, and even back in the day he wasn't very good at it. For example, he would have never thought to do his bottom waterline, let alone the top one, in black, or to put it on thin under the eyelashes and then smudge it out.

She'd finished up his eyes and was reaching for a lipstick when he said, "Nope. We're done."

They've been having versions of this discussion since the first time she took him to one of her clubs. "Come on, it's black. Nothing girly."

He's shaking his head. "I'm wearing black eyeliner, mascara, and nail polish. I'm done." Some lines even Tim won't cross, and lipstick is one of them.

"Fine. Help me?"

"Sure." She took off her shirt while he picked up the black corset he had gotten her. It was leather with red laces up the back.

"How tight do you want it?"

"Snug. But I've got to be able to breathe to dance."

"Okay." He began to thread the laces through the corset.

She stepped into a pair of skin tight black leather pants, and for a moment he appreciated the view, her topless, wearing pants of shiny leather that looked painted on. Then something occurred to him.

"I'm sensing a snag in our plan."

"What?" She asked, smoothing the zipper up.

"You've got easy access to me," because in proper kilt wearing tradition he didn't have anything on under it, "but I'm going to have a hell of a time getting you out of those pants."

"You'll just have to get creative."

He grinned. "Last time I got creative getting you out of your clothing, you never got to wear that clothing again."

"Don't you even think about cutting these off of me!"

He smiled even wider. "What if I promise to buy you a new pair?"

"Give me your key ring."

He handed it over, and she took the clasp knife he kept on it off, tucking it into her purse. "You get that back tomorrow."

He pouted a little and she kissed him. A moment later he finished the laces and said to her, "Arms up."

She did so, and he settled the corset on her, pulling the ties snug.

"Good?"

She inhaled deeply. "Yeah. That's good." She started on her makeup while he messed up his hair.

Five minutes later, they were ready to go. He was reaching for the door when she said, "Hold up. Gotta blot my lipstick."

He was expecting her to reach for a tissue, so when she knelt in front of him, lifted the kilt, and kissed the side of his penis, he was pretty surprised. He looked at it, a perfect, black lip print on his dick. She smiled, dropped the kilt, went back to the mirror to check her lips one last time and then said over her shoulder, "You're way too hot in that not to mark as mine."

* * *

Luca almost fell off his chair when he saw them come out. He expected Abby to be up for anything, but Tim—the mild-mannered guy, in a nice pair of jeans, button down, and loafers who walked into their home day before yesterday—in a kilt, boots, and eyeliner floored him.

Luca just looked him up and down and then said, "And now I see why you like this one."

"Love."

"And now I see why you love this one."

"We'll be out late." She smiled at her brother.

"I will not wait up."

Tim tossed Luca his phone. "Get a shot of us?"

"Certainly."

Tim draped an arm around Abby's shoulders, an expression on his face somewhere between a smile and a smirk as he imagines Tony seeing this shot.

Harper came in stared at them for a second and said, "You are the coolest thing ever!"

Tim laughed. "No one's ever said that about me before."

* * *

A man gets out of a Porsche in front of a Goth Club. He's wearing a kilt and eyeliner. He tosses the keys to a valet, and goes to the far side to open his date's door himself.

She is a long, tall, vision of sleek black leather and alabaster skin.

People stare.

And Tim enjoys it.

* * *

They were dancing, fast and close, and for a moment he was really enjoying the feel of her hand snaking up his thigh, cupping him. She'd been doing that, or things similar to it, keeping him half-hard and pleasantly turned on all night. So he wasn't thinking much about it, beyond enjoying it.

And then he realized that both of her arms were resting on his shoulders, which meant there was no way the hand gently tugging his balls belonged to her.

A few thoughts occurred to him. 1: There was a body pressed against his back. 2: His assumption that said body was pressed against his due to lack of space on the dance floor is probably wrong. 3: This body was pressed against his whole back, which meant this body was at least as tall as he is, which greatly diminished the chance of this body belonging to a female person. 4: There were two hands attached to this body and both of them were getting quite intimately acquainted with Tim's privates.

He leaned closer into Abby. "Do I want to turn around and see who's feeling me up?"

Abby opened her eyes, looked over his shoulder and slightly up,—Which unsettled Tim further. Abby in the boots she's wearing tonight is 6'2" and the tallest woman in the room, so whomever is behind him has to be huge and male.—and said "Mine!"

And then the hands vanished. Abby smiled at him, kissing him hard and deep. "Told you you were hot like this!"

* * *

They had been taking a break. Sitting down for a few minutes. Resting. Drinking. She was sitting on his lap, chatting with a friend she hadn't seen for a long time, who was kind enough to take a few pictures of them. The friend gave back his phone and headed off to dance.

She had pulled his head back and kissed him. Really kissed him, lips and tongue and touch with intent. The hand he had on her knee started to slip up her leg, caressing her inner thigh as she slowly rolled against him.

They aren't the only couple making out? making love? fucking? he's sure all of that, and any other variant you could possibly think of is going on around them somewhere.

And he also knows that if she was in a skirt, or a dress, or hell, shorts with a wide enough leg, he'd be balls deep in her and wouldn't care who could see. But she's not. She's in tight leather pants. Very tight leather pants, and boots that come up to her knees. She might as well be a mermaid for all the access he has to her right now.

The music changes, this one she likes, so she grabs the hand that's gently dragging over the crotch of her pants, and stands, pulling him up.

For the music they've been playing here, this is fairly slow, so they settle into a fairly slow grind, one of his legs between hers. And they've been doing that most of the night too, but this time, she's kissing him, hard, and her hips are rolling in a way they weren't before.

He wonders if she can get off riding his leg, and hopes she can. His left hand closes, gently, on her breast, and slips it out of the corset. He lowers his head to kiss and nuzzle her, while the music speeds up and they move faster against each other.

A few songs pass by, and he can feel by the desperate speed of her hips against his leg that this isn't quite enough to do it for her. She's almost there, but the leather, the lack of focus of the touch, it's not enough.

He licks her nipple one last time, replacing tongue with fingers, and cups his other hand around the back of her neck.

For a long minute he kisses her deep and hard, fucking her with his tongue, showing her what he'd like to be doing if she wasn't in those pants. She's whimpering against him, clutching his shoulder and ass, grinding her whole body against his.

He breaks the kiss, nipping over her lips, mouthing her jaw to her ear, and then he gently, delicately licks her earlobe.

"You're wet to your thighs, aren't you?" He hopes she can hear this, over, or more likely, through the music, because he's not about to yell it.

She nods. Good she can hear him. If he can't fuck her with his body, maybe his words will do the job.

"Good. I'm going to take you over to that table and bend you over it." He eyes an empty table on the far side of the club, and sees her look at it. But her eyes return to him when he says, "Then this boot is coming off." He nudges her left boot with his foot, his fingers lightly caressing her neck, rubbing her nipple firmly. "Then I'll press right up behind you. Can you feel it, cool wood pressed against your cheek," he grinds his erection into her hip, "hot wood pressed against your ass? I'll unzip you, and get you out of these damn pants." He licks her ear again, sucking on the lobe. "We are never going to a club with you in pants again. Never! You dance with me like this, and I want to get into you. Not just rub up against you." Her hand that had been on his ass slips under his kilt and begins to stroke him. He groans at that, and then took her hand away. He's sure she can get him off while he talks dirty to her, but that isn't quite the goal of this. "Later. You can fuck me however you want when we leave, but this is for you. So where were we? Oh yeah, pants off, on the table..."

She moans at that, and rubs faster against him.

"I'll hitch your left leg up on the table, spread you wide open, so everyone can see, and rub my cock against the back of you thigh, getting it wet and slick. Then I'll tease you with it. Stroking you with it, rubbing it along your lips and clit. Can you feel me, hot and hard against you, slipping against your wet skin, dragging, slowly, between your lips, edging just the tip between them, so you can feel just a little stretch before slipping away to rub your clit? Feel it?"

"God, Tim, fuck me, please!" She's grinding hard and fast against his leg.

"That's exactly the idea, baby. You'd be holding onto the far end of the table, and I'd be right behind you, teasing, driving you crazy, and just when you start to whimper, when you're so turned on you're almost out of your mind, I'll grab your wrists and thrust in hard. Feel that?" He grinds hard against her. "Me, rock hard, inside of you, moving fast, my hands pinning yours, my whole body stretched out against the back of yours."

He licks her earlobe again and pinches her nipple, hard, feeling her back arch and her hips grind against his leg. She's flushed from her forehead to her breasts, and her eyes are glazed. He begins to kiss her but she pulls back and says, "Don't stop talking to me."

He grins. "Want me to get you off with my words?"

"Yes!"

He kisses back to her ear. "Feel me in you? Feel me fucking as hard as I can? Feel the cool wood of the table against your bare pussy? Feel me deep inside you?" He sucks her earlobe again. "Not deep enough. I grab one of the chairs and sit down, legs spread wide. I pull you into my lap, facing away from me, legs over mine, so you're wide, wide open, and slip in in one easy thrust. I'm balls deep inside you, and my cock's so hard it hurts, and you're riding me. Up and down and hard and fast, and I lean back a bit, so you can too, and we can get that angle that makes you see stars while everyone in the club watches me fuck you, sees that you're mine: my woman, riding my cock. I'll roll your breast with one hand and rub your clit with the other, over it in fast, fast circles. Feel it, my fingers on you, getting that spot exactly the way you like it? Feel me, deep inside you, hitting your g-spot on every down thrust? I can feel you on me, hot and so wet, and you're calling out my name, clenching against me, your body so tight, almost there, so I speed my fingers, press a little hard—"

"Tim!" And then she's twitching erratically on him, head back, flushed all over, and moaning. He stops moving and holds her close, letting her come down against him. He looks around, and it's a Goth club, people are dancing and fooling around all over, no one seems to have noticed Abby climaxing against his leg.

He smiles and kisses her forehead, slipping her breast back into the corset. This is the kinkiest thing they've ever done, and even though he didn't get off, that's still going in his top ten sexual encounters.

She cuddles against him, purring gently. After a minute, she kisses him sweetly, grins, and says, "Let's go."

"Now?" That came out a little less sure than he would have liked. He had talked her off, and gotten awfully close to talking himself off as well, and the second she steps away everyone on earth will be able to see that.

"Yes. You said I could fuck you any way I liked once we left. We're leaving, now."

"Okay." Abby's trying to pull away, but he's still holding her tight to him.

"We're not moving."

"Yeah." He thinks about it for a moment, and decides that since there's no possible way his erection is going down without some help, and honestly, this feels way too good for a quick toss off, that the best way to handle it is just walk out tall and proud and pretend strolling around with sex flushed girlfriend and a tented kilt is an entirely normal circumstance.

He lets go of Abby's hips, and she steps back, looks down, sees what the issue is, and grins.

"That looks promising."

"Good. Let's see if I can get back into the car without blushing."

She strokes him gently. "That's nothing to blush about."

He grabs her wrist. "Unless you want me getting off here and now, don't play with it."

She looks straight at him, squeezes gently, and he can see the wicked glint in her eyes. "Do you want me to back you up against the bar and blow you right here?"

He inhales sharply and exhales a low and slow, "Oh." Each one of those words felt like a soft, wet suck to the dick. He looks around the club, and yeah, other people are making out or having sex, but no one is being _that_ blatant about it. Even in New Orleans, even in this club, that's probably enough to get them bounced, and maybe arrested.

"Fuck, yes, please!" He feels her begin to press him toward the bar. "And no, that's a really bad idea. Neither of us wants to explain to Vance how we got arrested for indecent exposure and lewd acts in public."

She pouts a little at that, but steps back, lets go of him, and takes his hand in hers. A minute later she's got her bag, and they're waiting for the valet to get the car. He's wishing he had parked himself, because he's expected to make casual chit chat with the other people waiting, and really, he's just not able to do that. Though he does appreciate the fact that Abby is standing right in front of him, leaning her back against his chest, shielding most of him from the view of the people around them. He wraps his arms around her, and kisses her neck. She smiles, turns, and kisses him back.

He opens her door for her, gets in, buckles up, and says, "Where to?"

"Anywhere, any way, I like?"

He thinks about that for a second. "Not Luca's. I'm too turned on for quiet. If it's a bed, I'll fuck you through it, if it's a wall, I'll fuck you into it. Pick wherever you like, but I don't want to wake up an entire bed and breakfast's worth of people, including your fourteen-year-old niece, and then have to face them in the morning."

She grins, takes his phone out of his pocket, with only minimal caressing of his inner thigh and right testicle, and then gets the GPS set up.

In a minute, it was telling him to head to the right, so to the right he went. "Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"Okay. How long of a drive?"

"Not too bad. This time of night, the GPS says fifteen minutes."

They're already on the edge of town, so fifteen minutes was either starting to get off the beaten track or was much closer to the Quarter. He doesn't know his way around well enough to tell at first, but as the buildings get further and further apart, he's fairly sure they're heading for off the beaten path.

Five minutes go by without them passing anything. Then he sees it. It's got to be where they're going.

He's thinking his previous assessment that this was the kinkiest thing they'd ever done needed to be ratcheted up a few notches.

He pulls in and drives for a moment, looking for a spot where the car isn't visible from the road, finds one, parks, and then turns to her. "We're going straight to Hell for this."

She grins, warm and wicked lust in her eyes. "I thought you didn't believe in Hell."

"I don't. But it might start to believe in me if we do this."

She smiles, a little bit of challenge in her eyes now. "You backing out on me?"

He shook his head, feeling his erection, which had gone down slightly during the drive surge back to life. "Oh no. Any game you come up with, I'll play."

"Good."

There are a lot of things New Orleans is famous for: Jazz, gothic architecture, food, parties, sex, and, of course, graveyards. New Orleans has some of the most beautiful and famous graveyards in the world.

They aren't in one of them. The cops in New Orleans probably bust about ten people a night for fooling around or trespassing in the main graveyards. They're in a fairly small one. But the fact that it's fairly small does not in any way negate the fact that it's creepy as all get out. Mausoleums poking through a misty fog under live oaks wrapped in Spanish moss style creepy.

She unbuckled, and then did his seatbelt for him, too, flipping up the kilt and giving him a teasing little kiss before getting out.

He followed her, taking her hand once he was out of the car.

"So, where to?" He's thinking the hood of the car here in the parking lot would work just fine, but he can see her looking toward the mausoleums.

She started walking forward, turned toward him, and said, "I wanna see if I can make you come loud enough to wake the dead."

He laughs. "I'm turned on enough that's possible. Just remember, we wake up a bunch of zombies, and I'm not going to be in any condition to run away from them."

"Then I'll make sure you die happy."

"Can't ask for more than that," he says with a smile.

They didn't go very far in, just enough to be out of view of anyone in the parking lot.

She was walking in front of him a bit, looking around, and apparently decided behind a large gray mausoleum was just fine. So she stopped, leaned forward from the waist, in a long straight legged bend, and began to unzip her boots.

And Tim just watched. Soft, murky moonlight lighting Abby's ass, looking almost edible it was so delicious. He figured that every blood cell in his body was either in his dick by that point or headed that way. He's hard enough he could fucking pole vault with it. And so turned on he actually feels light headed. And right this moment he literally could not care less about the fact they're in a graveyard.

She straightens back up and steps out of the boots, bare feet sinking into soft, damp grass.

"Help me with the pants?"

"Yes." He's kneeling in front of her in a second. She pulls down the zipper, and slips the pants over her ass. He takes over from there, tugging them down her legs. The second they're off, he pulls her to him, licking and sucking desperately.

He pulls back for a second, "God, you are wet to your thighs!" and starts to lap at her thighs, fingers stroking easily on slick flesh.

The smell is killing him, his dick is actually throbbing from it: leather, turned on Abby, grass, mist, his saliva on her skin. He doesn't think he's been this turned on before. It's not like he feels like he's going to get off any second. He's in control. But he wants, wants more, wants harder, than he's ever remembered wanting.

She gets off fast this time, pulling his mouth tight against her, her voice echoing through the almost silent night.

He pulls back for a second, looks around quickly, and says, "No zombies, yet. Gotta do better."

She pushes him back, so he's sitting in the grass, feeling it cool and prickly against his legs. "Oh, I'll do better all right. Or, I'll make you do better."

"Yes. Please."

"Lay down."

He did, feeling the grass on his back, damp through his shirt, and the way it tickled and prickled against the back of his neck and ears.

And in a second none of that mattered. She holds him, firmly, by the base of his cock, making sure there's no shot of him accidentally getting off, and then sucks him to the root in one long swallow.

He yells when she does it. Not pain. Hot, wet, suction all over him, her tongue rubbing the underside while she slowly bobs her head up and down. No, that sensation is most certainly not pain. This is pleasure so sharp that a moan or a groan just wouldn't do it, and if the idea is to wake the dead, he is going to make as much noise as he can, sound off properly, and let her know he appreciates what she's doing.

She sets a slow pace, making sure every millimeter is sucked and licked, and while he certainly appreciates the thoroughness, another minute or two of that is going to turn him into a babbling ball of aching lust.

She hums softly while she does it. He can't hear it, not over the noise he's making, but he can certainly feel it.

And he most certainly feels it when she pulls off of him, and then straddles him, sliding down, settling him deep inside her. He definitely hears it when she kisses his ear and says, "Fuck me into the ground."

He's not sure how he did it. (He spent a good ten minutes, the next day, thinking through the body mechanics, and he's still not sure how it happened.) But he went from laying down, Abby straddling him, to him on top, without rolling over. He knows they didn't roll over because her boots were near his head when she started blowing him, and they were at his feet when they got up to go home.

What he does know is that Abby's legs are wrapped around his waist, her hands are on his ass, pulling him into her, she's moaning loud as she can, a long stream of 'God, fuck, yes, Tim! FUCK!" filling his ears, and he is fucking as fast and as hard as he can.

Usually going full out means he can last about two minutes. Sure, he's not setting any endurance records, but if he's going full out he's also not trying to set any endurance records. What he's trying to do is thrust, as hard as he can, as often as he can, into a very soft, very wet, very hot, and very welcoming woman who is raking her nails over his ass, arching against him, urging him to go faster and making him feel like the strongest, most powerful, and just flat out sexiest man in the history of sex.

And God, he loves it. This might as well be a drug for how high he is right now.

He thinks he might have made it three minutes, (Could have been five minutes, or maybe thirty seconds, but probably not thirty seconds, his time sense is awfully fried right now, but hopefully not that bad.) before his vision began to black out and pleasure coursed through him, tingling to his fingers and toes.

And when he was able to think again, he said to Abby, who was quietly petting him as he rested against her. "I came so hard I felt it in my hair."

She laughs and kisses him. "Not seeing any zombies."

He smiles at her. "Give me a few minutes, we'll try again."

"Really?" She looks pleasantly surprised.

"Nope. Give me a few minutes, and I'll be asleep."

He doesn't want to move, but he also doesn't want to squash her, so he gets ready to pull out and snuggle up against her, and realizes this would be about the time he'd normally grab a tissue or two for each of them, but they do not have any tissues.

She seems to understand what he's thinking. "This would appear to be the second snag in our plan for the night."

"So, future clubbing dates: you will always wear a skirt or dress, and I'll make sure to have tissues in my pocket."

He pulls out and sits up, taking off his shirt, and hands it to her. Besides his socks, and well, yeah, that's just nasty, it's the only thing either of them are wearing made out of soft cotton. She wipes up and looks at it. "Not wearing that home, are you?"

"Don't think so."

He stands up, knees shaky, and grabs her boots and pants, offering them to her. Then he takes a moment to appreciate how easy the kilt is. He just stood up and was ready to go. That was nice. Actually all of that had been nice, no fumbling, no zippers, no feeling like his pants were going to cut his dick in half when he got hard. No squirming for a more comfortable position. Yes, kilts are a very good thing, indeed.

Abby gets herself dressed and they mosey back to the car. The whole trip home was at mosey pace. He was too tired and too relaxed to drive fast. So they got back to Luca's, eventually.

Sneaking in at three in the morning, both of them with grass stained knees and elbows, his shirt mostly hanging out of his pocket, and wide, half-naughty, half-guilty smirks, is a whole lot of fun.


	67. Back At Home

Ziva flicked on her computer and loaded up Facebook. She was having a bite of lunch at her desk. For a few minutes she just scanned the feed, clicking share on a few cute photos, adding a like here and there, not paying too much attention.

And then she just stopped and stared.

Her jaw must have fallen open because she felt Tony use one finger to gently shut it.

He stared over her shoulder, looking at the picture on her screen. "Okay, I know McGee's a lot more laid back about this sort of thing than I am, but I can't believe he took a picture of her sitting on some other guy's lap."

The picture in question was Abby, perched on the lap of a Goth in a black kilt.

"Tony, that _is_ McGee."

"No..." He looked at the photo a moment longer and saw the tattoo on his right arm. "Oh my God!"

"What are you two staring at?" Gibbs asked as he breezed back to his desk.

Tony looked up. "I'm honestly not sure. I think they went home to the Goth mothership."

Gibbs drifted over, stared for a second, tilted his head to the side a little. "Is he wearing lipstick?"

Ziva stared at it. "I think Abby was. He's just got some transfer."

She flicked to the next picture. Abby still in his lap, his one hand on her hip the other on her knee, and her leaning, fingers in his hair, in to kiss him. "Yes, the lipstick is transfer."

Gibbs looked, nodded, thought for a moment what Tim was like ten years ago and said, "'Man walks down the street in a hat like that, people know he's fearless.'"

Tony stared up at Gibbs, not sure which was more surprising, the words that had just come out of his mouth, or Tim in a dress. "Boss, did you just quote a television show?"

Gibbs shrugged. Emily made Fornell watch Firefly, he liked it, brought it over one night, and then the two of them watched it. Okay, it wasn't exactly a western, but it was close enough, so they both got into it.

"You did! McGee's wearing a skirt. You're quoting Joss Whedon shows. I woke up in Bizarro world this morning, didn't I?"

Ziva laughed.

* * *

That night, while getting ready for bed, Tony noticed Ziva was still looking at her computer. She didn't usually take her computer to bed. Usually a book went with her.

He sat next to her and saw another picture of Tim and Abby up.

"Ummm... something you want to tell me?"

She smiles a little. "Do you ever feel the desire to dress up and play?"

He looks at the pic she has up. Tim and Abby, gothed to the nth degree, dancing, his leg between hers, her body plastered to his. He's smiling, hands on her ass, she's got her hands around his neck, head back, laughing.

"Not like that, no." He looks closer. "He's wearing eyeliner, isn't he?" Tony shakes his head, some days he really just doesn't get McGee. Ziva's still staring at him, and he hasn't really answered her question. "But, you, me, a tux, a cocktail dress, and a high end casino. That I could get into."

"And which one of us is wearing the tuxedo?"

"I was thinking you would." He winks at her. "I'd be smashing in a slinky little blue number." He shimmies a little as he says that.

She laughs.

"So, would you like to get dressed up and go play someday?" he asks.

"Someday."

"I've got vacation time to burn, and I bet you do, too."

"Yes. I do. Have you ever been to Monte Carlo?"

Tony grins. That sounds like his perfect idea of fun.


	68. Mom and Ben

"I know that look. That's your I-don't-know-what-to-do look," Abby said to Tim as they were packing up, getting ready to get back on the road. Twelve days left to go, and Dallas was up next, and after that... well, they hadn't yet figured out what came after that. But there's a whole country with a lot of interesting stuff in it out there.

"I don't."

"So what has you pondering?" He's staring at his bag, open, and all of his stuff spread out around it.

"We don't have enough room to take the new stuff along with us. Something has to get mailed back. I can keep the kilt and boots with me, but I've got to send a pair of jeans and two pairs of shoes back."

"Hmmm... Or send the kilt and boots back."

"Exactly. If we go to Austin and Seattle," they had talked a little about those two cities, "then there will probably be the sorts of places where the kilt might be appropriate. But I'm not exactly swimming in clothing, and not sure if I want to swap out jeans for something I won't wear everywhere."

Abby looked at his things, and then looked at hers. She picked up two of her pairs of boots and put them on the mail back pile.

"Bring 'em. I like you in them."

"Enough to send your boots back?"

"Yeah."

His eyebrows rose. Abby loves her boots, and getting her down to just four pairs of them had taken hours of her debating between them. "Wow."

She smiles and nods. "I really like you in the kilt."

* * *

As they're getting closer and closer to his mom's place, Tim is starting to get nervous. His mom was very pleased at the idea of him having a girlfriend, even more pleased about the idea of this being serious and moving toward married and kids, but he's never shown her a picture of Abby, and hasn't exactly mentioned the whole Goth thing. (While the terms "sweet, playful, and brilliant forensic scientist" all got used to describe her, "four years older than me" and "neck tattoo of a spider web" didn't.)

And he's wondering if the woman who set fire to his Mad magazines will greet a Goth soon to be daughter-in-law with grace and open arms. Sure, she's gotten a lot more relaxed and comfortable with life outside proper Navy lines since she divorced his dad sixteen years ago. (She's gotten a lot more relaxed about everything since they got divorced, and he wonders how much of that is due to the fact that she's happy now versus how much of that is not trying to keep the specter of his father happy.) And she wasn't at all bothered by some of Sarah's more interesting boyfriends, which he hopes is a good sign of a warm welcome for Abby, but still, he's a little nervous.

He also hasn't said anything to Abby about this, because if it isn't an issue, he doesn't want to make it one, and he doesn't want her feeling nervous. If his Mom or Ben gets weird about it, they'll be out of there in a heartbeat and onto the next stop.

But he's really hoping she'll like Abby. It'd be nice to have a relationship with at least one of his parents.

* * *

Tori and Ben Allister, or as Tim knows them, Mom and Ben, live in what he'd call a McMansion, but there's probably a better word for it. Anyway, it's big, vastly more room than the two of them need, on an itty-bitty lot with seven hundred other McMansions about ten inches away.

It's Ben's development. One of them at least. He's got properties all over Texas, some of them commercial, some of them residential, and all of them took a pretty hard hit when the market went south. Though by now, things have gotten back to about where they were in '04.

Within seconds of getting out of the car, a tall woman with green eyes and graying dirty-blonde hair is hugging Tim.

"Hi Mom."

She kisses him and then pulls back to give Abby a hug as well, looking her over, a wide smile breaking out on her face. "Oh, Abby! We've heard so much about you over the years!" And Tim feels the nervous tension that had been tightening his shoulders release.

Abby flashes Tim a curious look, and he shrugs a little. "So much about you over the years" isn't how he'd categorize what he's said to them.

His mom sees the look between them and says, "Tim's told us some, but you know him, he keeps his cards close to his vest. Sarah on the other hand..." And it occurs to Tim that while he might not have shown his mom any pics, Sarah, who is on his Facebook feed, probably did. "She was so excited when you two started dating again." Tori takes both of them by the arms. "Come on in, it's too hot to be standing out here."

Tim shrugs a little and opens the trunk, grabbing their bags. "Hot doesn't bother me, Mom." He didn't tell any of his family about the freezer incident. Doesn't think they need to know about it, but he's never going to complain about it being too hot again.

He hands Abby her bag, as he grabs his and shoulders the computer bag, and then they follow his mom into a combination foyer/great room.

"I've got the guest room ready," Tori says, leading them up the stairs and then down a long hallway situated between a few bedrooms, Ben's office, his Mom's office, and then up one more stairway. The third floor in these houses were designed to either be a game room or in-law suite, and Tori and Ben had gone for the in-law suite set up.

So the "guest room" is actually three rooms, a large bedroom, a sitting room, and a full bath. He guesses that when Ben's kids and their families visit, this space is useful. He's only stayed here twice, and both of those times, he'd been on his own, so he'd gotten one of the second floor bedrooms.

"You two just want to unpack and relax?"

Tim nods. Downtime sounds pretty good to him right now. New Orleans to Dallas is about eight hours, not too bad, but traffic had been pretty insane in Dallas and a little decompressing time would be good.

"Okay. Dinner's at seven."

"Thanks, Mom. Ben going to be here for dinner?"

"Oh yes. He wouldn't miss it."

"Okay."

* * *

The far wall of the sitting room is something of a shrine to all of the combined McGee and Allister kids and grandkids. It's covered in photographs. And after they get settled, Abby wants to look at them.

She eyes the different shots, a whole lot of them involving kids and people she doesn't recognize, but she quickly finds one that looks like it's the key to all the shots around it. It's a picture from Ben and Tori's wedding, one with all of the kids in it. He's standing next to Sarah, his three step-brothers and their wives on the other side of her.

"Who is everyone in this one?"

"You know Sarah and I," his finger hovered over each person as he named them, "and these are my step-brothers, Michael, Seth, and Wes, and their wives, Jill, Gail, and Sarah."

"Two Sarahs?"

"Three." He searches the pictures and then finds one of a little girl, maybe four years old. "She's Sarah, too."

"You have nephews and nieces."

"Sort of. I've only ever seen Josh," he points out a tall boy, maybe twelve years old, "in person. That was at Mom and Ben's wedding, when he was four. Really, we have the sort of relationship where I send them Christmas cards and they do the same and we're all on each other's Facebook feeds. That's the only reason I can identify the kids."

"Okay." Another picture grabs her attention. "Who's the baby?" It was a picture of Tim, maybe tenish years old, holding a baby.

"That's Sarah. I'm nine years older than she is."

She's looking at the shot. "I knew that, but, I don't know, it wasn't really real until looking at this."

"She was nineteen the first time you met her."

"Wow." Her eyes skim to the left. "Oh my God, this is the cutest thing ever!" Abby whips out her phone and takes a quick picture of the shot of Tim in his Wilderness Scout uniform.

"That's going on your Facebook page, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah! I'm practically required by law to post this. It's the girlfriend code, page nine paragraph six, sub paragraph b, ridiculously cute photos of the boyfriend shall be shared with the world."

He half-rolls his eyes. "Thanks. You know Tony's going to blow it up, stick it on a cardboard cut-out, and post it behind my desk."

"Then I'll take it home and keep it."

He looks at her disbelievingly. "What'll you do with it?"

"Hold onto it until our kids are old enough to be embarrassed and then use it to blackmail then into behaving."

He thinks about that for a second, looking at himself, twelve-years-old, chubby, well-scrubbed, in a uniform with every badge that anyone had ever made for Wilderness Scouting on it, and decides it'll be good for that.

"I've heard worse plans."

Abby takes a step to the right. "Which graduation is this?"

He stares at the photo for a second, identifying the honors marks on his robe and the building behind him, his mom, and Sarah. "Johns Hopkins. MIT and high school are around here somewhere."

Abby took two steps over, and smiled gently at another of the photos from Ben and Tori's wedding. It's Tim, in a tux, standing next to his mom, walking her down the aisle.

"You gave away the bride?"

"Yeah. Sarah was her maid of honor. Kind of trippy when the Minister asked, 'Who gives this woman,' but it was cool."

"Good wedding?"

"I've had better times at weddings, but yeah, it was good."

She looks at him curiously.

He grins. "Not saying it wasn't fun. Just saying I had a better time at Jimmy's." That makes her smile.

She looks through all of the pictures quickly. "No date?"

"June, 2005. Wasn't seeing anyone often enough to travel to Dallas with for a family wedding."

"Am I the first girlfriend you've brought home?"

"Since high school. And in those days... well, every girlfriend got brought home because I lived there."

"You had more than one girlfriend in high school?"

"Yeah. Not a ton more than one, but I wasn't completely anti-social. Here." He starts to look over the wall, half-hoping it's not up there but pretty sure it is, somewhere. And yeah, it was. "Senior prom." He grabs her hand before she can get her phone up to snap a picture of that, as well. "I don't care if there is girlfriend law, that one doesn't go anywhere."

"You're so cute!"

"Thanks," he says dryly, "nothing a man loves hearing better than he's 'cute.'"

She's grinning. "You're what, seventeen in that picture?"

"Yeah. Though the reason for pointing it out is, you'll notice there's a girl standing next to me in that shot. Actual proof of a high school girlfriend."

She laughs. "And let me guess, the reason that this is proof of a girlfriend as opposed to just a date is that there is no way in hell you'd have on a pink bow tie and vest unless said girlfriend demanded it to match her dress."

"It's salmon, not pink, and exactly!"

She smiles and raises an eyebrow. "And did that work out well for you?"

He laughs. "Hadn't thought about that in a long time, but yeah, it did."

"Just not quite as well as you had hoped."

"True, condom stayed in my wallet, but I was pretty happy by the time I got home."

They spent the next fifteen minutes looking at different pictures, Tim giving her little snippets of who was who and what they were doing. By then he was feeling like the last of the nervous tension from wondering how his mom would react to Abby and Dallas traffic was gone.

"So, want to head down and see if we can help with dinner?"

"Yeah."

* * *

So, steaks on the gill, baked potatoes, and salad for their first dinner in Texas might be a cliché, but from the way the steaks smell, it's going to be an awfully tasty one.

Tim, Abby, and his mom are standing on the small back porch, waiting to flip the steaks when Ben came through the sliding glass door to meet them. He's not a huge man, he's shorter than Tim, but he's wide and round, and has a big, drawling, Texas sort of voice.

When he steps onto the porch, he kisses Tori first. "Hey, baby."

"Hi." She smiles and kisses him back.

"You were right, they made it!" He gives Tim a warm hand shake. "Good driving, Tim?"

"Yes. The trip was a little over eight hours," Tim says while Ben wraps Abby in an enthusiastic hug.

"Hello!" He kisses her cheek. "He told his mama you were brilliant, but left out you're beautiful! Don't ever leave that out when you describe a woman, son."

Abby grins at Ben, liking him very much.

* * *

"How did you two meet?" Abby asks a few minutes later when they're sitting down to eat.

"I was working as a regional sales manager for Lansom Properties. Covering the whole south-west," Tori started.

Ben grinned, he had the sort of face that seemed made to grin. "And one of the reasons I'm good at what I do is that I've got no problem swiping the best talent I can find. So, I heard through the grapevine that Lansom's sales are way up over the last two years, which means it was time to go headhunting."

"He walked in, pretending to be a property tax auditor for Texas, wanting to see our records."

"Mostly just wanted to see how she'd handle it."

"And I checked him up and down, booted him out of our office when he wasn't the real deal, and ended up with a job offer before he was out of the parking lot."

"Which she accepted. And from there we got to know each other. I wasn't looking for a girlfriend, my wife had died a little more than two years earlier, just a manager who could handle anything our work threw at her."

"But we got on." Tori reached out to touch his hand. "And I noticed I was wandering into his office more often than I needed to."

"And I was giving her more and more jobs, just to be able to talk to her while I did it."

"And eventually we were on an out of town trip…"

"Los Angeles," Ben added.

"And we just decided to stop dancing around each other and see what would happen if we dated."

"A year later we were married. How about you two?"

Abby looks at Tim, and then at Tori and Ben, "It was a bit over ten years ago..."

* * *

He's sitting on the sofa next to his mom, waiting for Ben and Abby to come back with what has been promised to be the best ice cream ever made, let alone that he's ever tasted.

Tori spends a good minute just looking at him, a warm smile on her face. "You're going to marry her?"

"Yeah, Mom." He gets out his phone. He'd finally gotten the email saying the ring was done, with photos, yesterday. "Here. Take a look." He's certain about one thing, no matter what, no matter how amazing the final ring is in person, they are not getting their wedding rings from this guy.

She inhales sharply when she sees it, and Tim grins. That's exactly the kind of reactions he wants from Abby's ring.

"Oh, Tim! That's perfect for Abby."

"Thanks. We'll be engaged a day or two after getting home."

"So, are you ready for this?"

"Yes. I am."

She puts her arm around him. "Good. I always worried about you being alone."

"I was never really alone." His mom looks skeptical about that, and he thinks that she'd never really get the whole team vibe, but it's true. Since he's been at NCIS, he hasn't been alone.

"Okay, worried that your dad and I scared you off of loving someone."

"Scared me cautious, that's certainly true. But no, not scared me off love."

"Good." They sit for another minute. Tim's eyes on the mantle covered with pictures of Ben and Tori, their kids and grandkids.

"Mom?"

"Tim?"

"Why did you marry him?"

His mom smiled a little. "He was brilliant, and funny…" She sees the disbelief on Tim's face. "He had this sharp, dry humor, and a wicked tongue when it came to the sly sarcastic remark."

Tim nodded, that he knew all about, unfortunately because that tongue had been used against him all too often. But he supposed it could be funny if you weren't the target.

"He was driven. Going to save the world, or die trying. And that's appealing. Nothing sexier than a man with a purpose. But in the end, it turns out if you're off saving the world, you're not at home. When your scale of 'important' is global, the people waiting for you don't matter all that much. And when they're determined to be 'important' too, you start to resent them. And that killed anything we might have had."

"You deserved to be important, Mom."

"So did you, Tim." She kisses his forehead. "So, tell me, are you going to learn from the mistakes your father and I made."

"I certainly intend to."

* * *

"You have a good talk with your mom?" Abby asks as they settle into bed that night. He's lying on his back, hands behind his head, and she sits, back against the headboard, arms around her knees.

"Yeah. Thanks for the alone time."

She nods. "No problem."

"How are you liking Ben?"

"He's nice. Why don't you talk about him all that much?"

Tim shrugs. He's got nothing against his step-dad, he just doesn't know him all that well. "Probably because I've spent about three days with him since he's been in my mom's life. He makes her happy, which is great, but it's not like I know him."

She seems to be thinking about something, not sure how to bring it up.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks.

She shrugs a little. So he waits, knowing she'll talk eventually.

"My next Depo shot was due for the week after we get home."

"Okay." He keeps waiting, seeing where she'll take this.

"Just… looking at all the wedding pictures, and baby pictures, and... Will you hate me if I want to wait some more?"

He shakes his head. "No. I don't want to rush you into anything. And I don't want fear to rush either of us into anything."

She smiles at him, pleased with that answer. "I want to be married before we have kids."

"Okay. But if you want, I'll marry you tomorrow, or the day after if you want to do it in Vegas."

"Vegas?" She thinks about it, and then grins and shakes her head. "Rumor has it, you've got something planned for me, and I want to see what that is."

"You really are hooked into a different rumor mill than I am."

She laughs.

"So, what else does rumor have to say about that?" Tim asks.

"That I'll be extremely pleased when I see what it is."

"Uh huh... And in this case would your rumor mill be Ziva or Jimmy."

"I'm not telling."

He smiles, and she lays down next to him, on her stomach, propped up on her elbows, kissing him gently.

"You really okay with putting McSciutos off a bit longer?"

"Yeah, I am. Just you and me is a lot of fun. But I won't lie, I really want to see what sort of baby we'll make."

"Me too."

"So, where to next?" he asks. They've gotten stop one and two on the list done, which meant they'd run out of planned activities and had hit the wing it part of their trip.

"Austin?" she says. "Good music scene. Clubs we'd both like. Kilt friendly territory."

"Sounds good."

"I was wondering," Abby asks, "You got to see some of my old haunts, is there anywhere like that for you? A place that matters?"

He thinks about it. He's not really a place person. "I guess. But we've got to head a few thousand miles east to get to them. There are a few spots in Boston I've got some history with."

"Nothing in California?" He lived there for thirteen years.

"My grandparent's house is there, but without them in it, it's just wood and stone. Nothing I want to go 1500 miles out of my way for."

"I was hoping to see Seattle, never been out there before, and yeah, Vegas sounds good to me."

He reaches for his phone and starts to plot that out. "They lived in Redding, and from Vegas to Seattle, that's sort of on the way."

"Anywhere out there you do want to see?"

"Portland?"

"'The dream of the nineties is still alive?'"

"Cute. Just never been there, it's supposed to be cool, and two of my college buddies ended up teaching at Reed, wouldn't mind catching up if you wouldn't mind a night with a bunch of hardcore math/computer geeks."

"I like math and computers geeks."

"Good." He's fiddling with Mapquest. "So, say, Austin to Vegas is eighteen hours. Could stop somewhere in between or just drive hard. Vegas to Redding is another ten, Redding to Portland is only another six, and Portland to Seattle is only three. From there we can figure out how to head east."

She's nodding. "Sounds good."

He puts the phone down, and rolls onto his side, facing her. "One more day here, and then onto the real vacation part of it?"

"I think so." She kisses him again, soft and sweet. "You know what I've never done?"

"Skydiving with Elvis impersonators?"

"That too. But I was thinking, I've never had sex in my boyfriend's parent's house."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"And were you hoping to do something about remedying that?"

"I was hoping to." She flashes him a huge grin and kisses him again. Her hand fell to his waist then slid to cup his dick. "If I could find a boyfriend willing to give me a hand on that."

"Well, that's not my hand, but I could probably overlook your appallingly bad grasp of my anatomy to help you in your time of need."

"Appallingly bad grasp of my anatomy?" She looks mock insulted.

"That's still not my hand." He laughs.

"Yeah, but I thought you liked my grasp." She pulls gently, letting her hand slide over him.

"Yes." He sighs as she plays with him a little more. "So good." He pulls her tighter to him and kisses her deeply, tongue and lips sliding over her. Then between soft wet kisses says, "Okay, very good grasp. Liking that grasp a whole lot. Appallingly inaccurate grasp of my anatomy."

She lets go, rolls him onto his back, and lifts his hands over his head, and twines her fingers with his, and leans her weight into his hands.

"Hey, don't let go!"

"If you're going to complain about lack of attention to your hands, I'm going to pay attention to your hands."

"Tease."

"You know you love it!" She scoots up a bit, so she's straddling his chest, using her left knee to keep his right arm pinned, and then take his left hand in both of hers.

She settles back, holding his hand gently, and began lightly stroking her fingers over it. And yeah, it's nice, kind of sharp and tickly in places, but, well, he's a guy. This isn't going to get him off. Hell, it's not going to get him hard for that matter, not by itself.

Of course, the view, her sitting across his chest, naked, legs wide, so her knee can press into his bicep, that'll do the trick. Yes, that is indeed doing the trick.

So, he's not exactly paying too much attention to what she's doing with his hand. He's paying significantly more attention to the view, and vaguely wondering how good the sound-proofing is on these rooms. He hasn't heard anything from downstairs, but he doesn't know if that's because Ben and Tori are being quiet or because he just can't hear them.

And yeah, he's fairly sure his mom knows he's not a virgin, let alone suspects that he has sex with Abby on a pretty regular basis, but they've never talked about it specifically, and there's a difference between knowing intellectually and hearing it happen ten feet above your head.

She bites the ball of his thumb, and he refocuses on her. "Something more interesting to you?"

"Just wondering how good the soundproofing is."

"Oh." That appears to be an acceptable reason for his mind to wander.

"Yeah."

"You don't want them to hear?"

He nods. "Pretty much. There's kinky and there's way out of bounds, and letting your mom and step-dad listen in strikes me as _way_ out of bounds."

She nibbles her way to the tip of his index finger and then sucks it and his middle finger into her mouth. She licks them, swirling her tongue over the pads of his fingers. That has his attention. Then she slowly pulls back, tongue leaving soft wet licks as her lips release.

"Then we'll just have to see how quiet we can be."

He nods, grinning, eyes warm and flirty.

She trails his wet fingers down her chest, down her stomach, and slips them between her lips, while shifting her leg off of his arm.

He knows what to do with his fingers now, and she sighs quietly, leaning down to his ear. "How's that for giving me a hand?"

He kisses her. "Scoot up a bit, and I'll give you some tongue, too."

She laughs. "Might have a hard time staying quiet if you do that. Got anything to help muffle me?"

He's probably grinning like a dope, but he's just enjoying this so much. "I just might. Scoot up and flip around and we can find out."

He was already licking her gently when he heard her say, "Oh, yes, this will do nicely," then felt her hand wrap about the base of his dick while her lips wrapped around the tip.

And yeah, he would have liked to moan. Her pussy on his lips, his tongue pressed against her clit, while she's swallowing him, yeah, that's the sort of thing that makes him moan, loudly, but he kept quiet, and just sighed a little, squeezing her hip with his right hand, hoping that got across a silent _I love this! So good!_

And as he licked fast, while his fingers push-pulled in and out gently and slowly, he felt the vibrations from her throat, and knew, that in any other circumstance, that would have been a loud moan out of her, as well.

And since they were doing such a good job of being quiet it seemed horrendously loud when he thrust fairly hard and the bed creaked in a way beds only creak when someone is having sex in them. They both went still for a second, and then broke apart in giggles. A minute later, he kissed her thigh and said, "Okay, this isn't going to work, where next?"

She scanned the room quickly. Hardwood floors might be nice from an appearance point of view, but not so much fun for sex. Overstuffed comfy looking chair in the corner should work.

She nodded toward it, and he stood up, taking her hand in his and sat in the chair. She settled herself in his lap, and that was awfully good, too.

And like the bed, that was fine, as long as they kept their movements soft and gentle. As soon as they got really going it became abundantly clear that this chair rocked as it banged with a loud thwack into the wall behind it and the legs hit the hardwood floor with a sharp crack.

Once again, they stopped, laughed, and Abby said, "Your mom is evil, you know that?"

"I'm getting that idea." He pulled her tight to his hips, wrapped his hands around her hips and stood up, still inside her.

She crossed her feet on the small of his back and held onto his shoulders.

It was the first time they had tried this for more than a few seconds without a wall or something to brace against. But by that point he was pretty close and she was, too. And all of the walls had picture frames on them, and with the way they'd been going they'd rattle or fall off and break or something.

So they tried standing freeform and found that it worked pretty well. (Holding her up long enough to get both of them off was a kick for him. Nothing he'd ever mention, but yeah, that felt good. And judging by the way she kept petting his arms as they fell asleep, she liked it, too.) And his tongue on hers (or vice versa) did a pretty good job of keeping them both fairly quiet.

And if Tori or Ben heard anything, they didn't let on come breakfast the next morning.


	69. Speedtrap

They spent a day and a half in Austin, mostly hitting different music clubs, but after lunch on the second day, he suggested they go back to the hotel for a nap. She woke about three hours later and found Tim sitting in front of his laptop looking at some sort of map.

"What's that?"

"Every speed trap on an interstate in the West."

"Every speed trap in the West?"

"On an interstate."

"Okay. And why do we need to know this?"

He turns, grins up at her, and kisses her. "According to Ziva my car handles amazingly at one twenty. I've never had it over ninety. And sitting in front of us is hundreds of miles of pretty much nothing."

"So, you want to get out there and drive like a maniac?"

"Yeah. You me, hundreds of miles of nothing, the moon rising over us, see if we can blow past El Paso in less than six hours, that sound good?"

"Oh yeah!"

* * *

Tearing through West Texas, moon rising high in the sky over the desert, music on loud, Abby at the wheel, racing the good ol'boys in pickups goes into Tim's I've-got-to-remember-this-forever file.

"How did you learn to drive like this?"

"Southern boys love their cars, and my daddy was one of 'em. You should see what I can do with a pickup."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. Someone had to teach Gibbs how to do a bootleggers turn."

Tim looks very startled by that idea, and Abby laughs, cranking the music and flooring the gas.

* * *

At the age of thirty-five Tim McGee thought he had figured out everything that turned him on. So he was a little surprised at how driving insanely fast with Abby by his side affected him. Not displeased by this, mind you, but definitely surprised.

It was only when he was driving. Her driving was lots of fun, but didn't make him hard. Maybe it was some deep seeded James Bond thing. Something about going insanely fast in a smoking hot car with a smoking hot girl next to him. Or maybe it was just the adrenaline rush flowing through his veins and making his skin buzz; he knows he read something somewhere about danger being an aphrodisiac. Possibly it was because of the focus required to do it. Driving fast is like hardcore coding, while doing it he was entirely in the zone, but this zone included the car, the road, the clutch, gas, gearshift, Abby's left leg in a fishnet stocking, and her hand on his right thigh.

But eventually that hand drifted further up his leg, under the kilt, seeming to notice that he was enjoying this a bit more than he had while she was driving.

Which is when his foot hit the break. Not so fast as to cause them to skid out or anything, but there was a certain urgency to it none the less. While he might indeed be enjoying this, he also didn't want to die for it. Back in grad school he had seen Swordfish with a few of his buddies, and had come to the conclusion that the odds were probably fifty-fifty that if he had a gun held to his head while getting a blow job that he'd be able to crack the code or die with a smile on his face.

And since he doesn't have to drive as Abby's hand closes around him, he's thinking now is a good time to stop the car.

About two seconds after the car came to a stop, Abby was in his lap, and a second after that it occurred to both of them that they were just too damn tall to do this with the top up. So a quick break in the action took place while he got the roof of the car tucked back, and pulled them off the road.

There's an image, a feeling, he has burned into his mind from this: sitting in the passenger seat, still buzzing from the adrenaline, Abby on his lap, hands on his shoulders, with her head back, moving fast against him, one of his hands under her shirt, on her breast, the thumb of his other hand on her clit, the sun rising behind them, lighting her yellow-pink, cold air and hot sex flushing her cheeks, while they both moaned and greeted the sun with loud, shuddering orgasms.

Making love in the Porsche as the sun came up over the desert was definitely a treat.

* * *

By the time the sun was full up, they were both pretty relaxed and sleepy, so they eased into Bowie, Arizona at a very relaxed place, and crashed for ten hours at the first hotel they came to.


	70. Arizona

In retrospect, driving through Arizona, at night, in a Porsche, with no lights on was probably a bad idea.

But the moon is edging toward full, the stars are a million miles closer out here than they are back in DC and with the headlights on you just can't see the desert all that well. It's more than light enough to drive, and he's got the running lights on so other drivers (not that there are any) can see him well enough.

The only good luck on this was that when he saw the flashers in his rearview mirror that he had only been going ten over the limit.

The cop who pulled them over looks to be, maybe, and Tim thinks this is a generous assessment, seventeen-years-old.

This is probably what he looked like to Tony when they first started working together.

He rolls down the window and sees the cop, Jeffery, according to his name tag, but for some perverse reason Tim's thinking of him as Opie, do a double take. Whatever he was expecting to see in that car, it wasn't Tim and Abby.

He stammers a little. "License and registration."

Tim hands them over, and Opie checks them out. "Excuse me, sir, do you know how fast you were going?"

"Eighty-five."

Opie blinks, not expecting that. "And did you know you were driving with no lights?"

"Yes. You can see better without them."

Apparently that also wasn't the answer he was expecting. He stares at the car, sees Abby grinning at him, and says, "Can I check your trunk?"

Tim sighs. "No."

Opie's not happy about that.

There's nothing illegal in the trunk. But he doesn't want this wet behind the ears noob going through his computers or sex toys. Let alone having to deal with getting everything repacked.

He didn't bring his badge or gun with him. It's a crime to use his badge for anything other than ID, like to try and get free stuff, and he's sensitive to how people react to seeing his badge, so unless he's on duty he doesn't keep it on him.

"Do you have a computer in your car?"

That also threw Opie—Jeffrey—for a loop.

"Yes."

"Go onto the Federal Agent Database. I'm Special Agent Tim McGee, NCIS, badge number," and he rattled off the digits.

"If you're a Federal Agent, where's your badge?"

"Not here, for the same reason you don't get to look in my trunk." Okay, sure that reason would be, I'm on vacation, but he doesn't much mind if Opie thinks it's some sort of special op."

"Who's she?"

"Abby Sciuto. I don't have a badge, but I'm in the Federal Employee Database as well, S-C-I-U-T-O, NCIS, Lead Forensic Specialist."

Opie heads over to his computer and twenty minutes later, he comes back. "Okay, you two check out. Please, turn your lights on."

"Fine." Tim flicks them on.

"You can go."

And he drove off.

* * *

"Someone better be dead," Tim said as one lone eyeball opened just enough to confirm that yes, Tony was calling him at 5:22 in the morning, or, more relevant, nine minutes after he and Abby went to bed.

"That someone'll be you if I don't have an answer for Vance immediately as to why a LEO out of Dolan Springs, AZ was looking you up last night."

"I didn't bring my badge along, and I didn't want Opie looking through the trunk."

"Opie?" He lost Tony on that one.

"Could we maybe do this when I've had more than three minutes of sleep?"

"Where are you?"

"Vegas."

"Okay. Just give me the really fast version. What happened?"

"Traffic stop. LEO wanted to search my car. I didn't want him doing it. Told him I was an officer. He checked. He backed off. And we went on our way."

"Fine. I'll let Vance know, and he can calm back down."

"Good." Tim hung up and went back to sleep.

* * *

"Are you awake now?" Tony asks.

Tim's watching him on Skype. "Yeah." It was five in the afternoon where they were, eight where Tony was. They'd decided to spend the day sleeping, and then get ready for the evening.

Ziva pops into the picture. "Hello, McGee."

"Hey, Ziva."

"So, what's the story? Why was Opie checking you out?" Tony asks.

Tim tells him and wraps up with, "And that's why you don't drive a Porsche though Arizona at night with no lights on."

"What do you have in your car you don't want a cop going through?" Tony asks.

Tim smiles. "The sorts of things I'm not telling you about, either."

"Why are you driving at night?" Ziva wants to know.

"Better view, no traffic. Oh, by the way, if you thought it was good at one twenty, one forty is amazing."

"You were driving the Porsche at one hundred and forty miles an hour?" Ziva looks stunned, and Tony's jaw has dropped.

Abby, just getting out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, crouches next to the screen. "Hey. No, that was me. He didn't get over one thirty."

He kissed the tip of her nose. "I might have gotten over a hundred and thirty, but you distracted me."

"Okay, that's enough of that!" Tony cuts in, "Did Opie get you going that fast?"

"Nah. We did that in Texas. McGee made sure we knew where the speed traps were going to be so we didn't get caught. But that was the night before, last night we were going kind of slow."

"Yeah, not driving one hundred and thirty miles an hour or more with no lights. I wasn't trying to get out of a ticket. I just didn't want Opie messing with our stuff. We were going eighty-five."

"Pretty zippy, McSpeedracer."

"Speed limit's seventy-five out there. Not too fast."

Abby turns the computer to the side a bit so her getting dressed isn't in view, and Tim moves with it. "Anyway, is Vance pissed?"

"No. There was no complaint or anything. He just wanted to know why you and Abby got looked up last night."

"That's why."

"And you're in Vegas now?"

"Yeah. Figure we'll spend a few days messing around here, then head north and west. Hit Portland and Seattle, then back east again."

"Going to come home married?" Tony asked.

Abby's not dressed enough to get back into frame, but they hear her say, "Oh no, we're making all of you come to our wedding."

"And Gibbs would pout if you got married without him," Ziva says to Abby.

Abby laughs at that idea. "There's something I'd love to see. Gibbs pout." She looks at Tim, smiling. "Think it's worth it?"

"No, because if he's going to start pouting, he's also going to headslap me with a brick. Gibbs likes to spread unhappy all over the place. Plus Jimmy and Breena really would pout."

"Good point." Abby nods.

"And so would Harper," Tim adds.

"Another good point."

"Who's Harper?" Tony asks.

"Abby's niece. Got to meet her in New Orleans."

"You have a niece?"

"Luca and Melody's daughter. She's fourteen. Tim's got three step-brothers and like seven nieces and nephews."

"Really?" Ziva asks.

"Yeah."

"And you have never mentioned them?" Ziva asks.

Tim shrugs. "I've only ever seen one of them. They aren't family so much as a bunch of kids who call my mom, Granma."

"Okay." Tony gets that. He has no idea how many nephews or nieces he might have if he was to count the kids of all his step-brothers and sisters. He shifts the topic, "So, Vegas, then what?"

"Portland, Seattle, thinking North Dakota—" Abby says, popping back into view, wearing a cute red lace cocktail dress.

"Abby, what on earth is in North Dakota?" Tony asks.

"Cool ghost towns." Ziva and Tony look at each other, both of them silently saying, 'Of course' with their expression. "And then back east again."

"Sounds good. Keep posting pictures, we're enjoying them," Ziva says.

"You should have seen Gibbs looking at the ones from the Goth club. You'll appreciate this, McGeek, he was quoting Firefly."

Tim grins for a moment, then thinks about that. "Tony, why can you recognize Firefly quotes?"

"Palmer held a gun to my head and made me watch it."

Tim narrows his eyes, disbelief in his gaze. "Nope, not buying that."

"Fine. I like movies, and if you like movies you're at least vaguely aware of Joss Whedon, and if you've run into Joss Whedon, then you're more or less required by law to watch Firefly."

"Uh huh… We'll talk more about this later. When we don't have a dinner date," Tim says.

"You have a date?" Ziva asks.

"Yeah, and I still need to get ready."

"Who do you even know in Vegas?" Tony asks.

"Big surprise, talk about it later," Abby finishes, grinning, and switches off Skype.


	71. People Actually Read His Book

Two days later, Tony looked over Ziva's shoulder at her Facebook feed. "You see, that makes sense to me."

Abby in a cocktail dress, leaning over Tim's hand, blowing gently on dice. Tim's wearing what Tony considers a surprisingly nice suit, dice in one hand, the other on Abby's hip.

The next shot, the two of them with Penn and Teller got a smile of approval from Tony, as well. He's not a huge magic fan, but those two are hilarious. Good to see Tim and Abby got to see a cool show. He wonders a little at how much backstage passes must have cost.

The shot after that, Abby dancing with Teller, had Tony reaching for his cell phone.

"McGee, why is Abby dancing with Teller?"

"Tony?"

Tim sounds sleepy, and Tony realizes that it's 7:00 AM Mountain, 6:00 AM Pacific, and he has no idea which one of those time zones they happen to be in.

"We're looking at Abby's Facebook feed. She's dancing with Teller. How did that happen?"

He can hear Tim sitting up, and waking up a little. "That was our dinner date. He's a fan, Tony. Five years ago he sent me a letter, saying if I ever got to Vegas to look him up. We got there. We looked him up. Saw the show, which was awesome, and had dinner with him, Penn, and both of their wives. It was a blast."

"Huh."

"Can I go back to sleep now?"

"Yeah, sure. Sorry."

He looks at Ziva, completely stunned by that, and then tells her what McGee had told him, wrapping up with, "You know, people really read his books."

"Yes, Tony. I know that. I read his books."

"But the second one was so... undefined."

"It was an unfinished rough draft. Did you ever read the version he published?"

"No."

She gets up, walks to her bookshelf, grabs a copy and tosses it to him. "Give it a try."

Four hours and three quarters of the book later, Tony looks up. "You just like this because you're all super-bad-ass-assassin, killing people right and left and looking mega-hot while you do it."

She smiles a little at that. "I do not mind that. It is a good story, too. And once I got over 'Lisa' and 'Lisa and Tommy' it was interesting to see how McGee understood who I was and am. He doesn't see everything or understand everything he sees, but he does sees different things about us, probably that we don't see, or don't want to see, about ourselves. I do not know if he's right about the things he writes about Gibbs, but I felt like I understood him better after reading these."

Tony nods; he can see that. "So, there's another one after this?"

"Yes. And he finished the fourth one about a month ago. Abby tells me there'll be a fifth one, and that he's got a contract for three more after that."

"You guys talk about his books?"

"We talk about all sorts of things. But yes, his books as well. Breena's read them, too."

Tony smiles, remembering Pimmy Jalmer. "How'd she take that?"

"She thought it was funny, and enjoyed the symbolism of being intractably attracted to and repulsed by the finality of death, and the futility of trying to overcome it with the actions of life."

"Uh..." He'd read that scene and just about wet his pants he was laughing so hard at the idea of Jimmy wanting to have sex with dead people. He'd completely missed there was anything besides his Probie messing with the Autopsy Gremlin.

"She's a very deep reader. But once she said that, I re-read it, and yes, that's in there."

"Okay."

"And according to McGee, that's what he was going for in that scene, so he was pretty happy that at least one other person read past the sex with dead people into what it meant."

"Kinky bastard."

"That, too. But he's also a good writer."

Tony stares at Ziva, eyes slightly narrowed. Okay, he knows about some of Tim's interests, but how does she know that? It's certainly not anything he's ever mentioned.

"How do you know that?"

Ziva laughs at the way he's looking at her. "I thought you knew? When Vance showed up, and reassigned all of us, McGee and I spent the weekend together, consoling each other. We got to know each other very well."

Tony drops the book. Ziva laughs harder. "I'm sorry Tony, no, nothing like that. When I have lunch with Abby and Breena, the conversation can get a little..." she stops and thinks, "personal. I know a lot about Jimmy, too."

Tony goes white. "Oh God. So they know..."

Ziva smiles. "Nothing you would not want them to know. And just like I've never mentioned what it is that I know about Jimmy or McGee to you, Abby and Breena do not blab to them."

"So, you talk with them about sex?"

"Yes, and I know you talk with McGee about it, too."

"We're guys, talking about sex is something we do."

"We are girls, talking about sex is something _we_ do."

"Yeah, but you don't do the whole, guess how many times I got laid last week, sort of thing."

A small mischievous smile crosses Ziva's face. "Are you certain about that?"

"I was… Do you do that?"

"Rarely, and neither do you and McGee, not anymore."

"Not ever really. It's not fair when one of you is so far above the other. If I come up with three in a week and he's got three in a year, it's just sort of sad."

"Is that why you were so off when he and Abby started dating? You were in a dry spell and he was racking up seven or eight a week."

Tony shakes his head looking incredulous. "Seven or eight? What does he, run on batteries?" Ziva just smiles. He sighs. "No. That wasn't it. He had the balls to say, screw twelve, I'm getting Abby. He was ready to move forward with her. And she was ready for him." He touches her face, gently, "And I was dreaming of you, and neither of us were ready, yet. And it was frustrating. And I was jealous as hell. And none of you told me, which was worse. And he did talk to someone, but it was Palmer. And I didn't notice what was going on, but you did, which made me feel like an idiot. Add in walking in on him and Abby, and it was just a bad week."

She nods. "I'm sorry you found out like that."

He shrugs a little. Not like Ziva didn't tell him to mind his own business. "So, what did I miss? How did you figure it out?"

"Nothing you could have picked up on, at first. Your sense of smell isn't as good as mine. He'd come up from the lab smelling like her, and it only happened when he was down there on his own. Then at Jimmy's wedding, as we were going in, he saw a 'friend' at the front desk and told me to go in while he said hi. If he had seen a friend, he would have introduced me. If he was getting a room, he would not have. He was staring at her during the vows. I don't read lips well enough to know what he mouthed at her, and I'm honestly not sure he knew he was doing it, but he was. They both vanished for about twenty minutes during the wedding, and when we saw him again, he smelled like her and was looking very relaxed. By that point I was certain enough to tell him he didn't need to give me a ride home. He gave me his keys, I drove the Porsche up to the Blue Ridge Mountains, which was fun, and then we talked about it on Monday when he picked up his car."

He thinks about that and then says, "So, besides talking about sex, what do you and Abby and Breena do?"

"You mean, do we gossip, try on makeup, and do each other's hair?"

Tony seems to appreciate that image, he's certainly grinning happily at it. "Something like that."

"We eat, we talk, we usually split some insanely calorie rich chocolate-based dessert. Sometimes we go shooting."

"Of course."

She smiles. "How else are we going to wipe the floor with you guys every time we play laser tag if we do not practice? You, Palmer, and McGee keep getting better, so we have to as well."


	72. Home

Like with Abby in the graveyard, getting oriented takes Tim a little while. The neighborhood is fairly similar, but landmarks he used to know, like the white house with swing set in the front yard is now blue and the swing set has been replaced by weeping willows, are gone or changed.

But he still knows this neighborhood, knows it in his bones, even if the landscape has shifted a bit.

He could just punch the address into the GPS, but he wants to find this on his own.

Wants to make sure it's still there, inside him, somewhere.

And it is.

"Haven't been back since '97," he says to Abby as they turn onto yet another residential street in maze of residential streets.

"What happened in '97?"

"Lots of things. My mom and dad finally divorced, and she moved back here for a few months. It was the last summer I came 'home' from college, so I also ended up here for a few months. I hadn't planned on coming back. I didn't summer after freshman year. But Pop was sick, and Mom was trying to get resettled with Sarah, so an extra set of hands was useful."

He pulls up in front of a clearly empty, but cared for, house. It's old. Built around the turn of the last century, maybe a little before. It's light blue with darker blue trim, a large wrap around porch, and Victorian lines.

"My mom grew up in this house. Pop and Gran got it right after World War II."

As they get out of the car Abby says, "What do you think? Maybe some place like this for us?"

He nods. It's aesthetically pleasing, and this sort of structure has good memories of family attached to it in his mind. "We can't go in. I didn't think to ask for a key before we left Texas."

"Don't want to break in?"

"Nah. Didn't bring my picks, either. And there's nothing inside. They've been holding onto it since my grandmother died. Between the market being lousy and this being a fairly nice neighborhood, they keep talking about maybe using it as a summer home after they retire. I think mostly my mom just doesn't want to really let it go. If she sells it, her childhood, and a lot of ours, is really gone."

He sits on the porch steps, and she sits next to him. He points to the far end of the porch. "There used to be a swing there. I'd sit next to Pop, and we'd rock, watch the sun set, talk. A lot of my better childhood memories are of this porch." He points to the spot just behind where they parked and smiles a little. "Got my first driving lesson there." He pats the step right next to her and smiles. "First kiss here."

"How old were you?"

"Thirteen. It was summer. Jessie Malone lived," he points three houses down the street, "there. My dad was away. I'm sure my mom found being in a house with just us lonely. So we stayed up here that summer. Jessie and I were both too smart, too bored, too shy, and liked astronomy. Pop let us play with his telescope. Spent a lot of nights watching the stars, so nervous I felt like I was going to explode, and floating on a cloud every time her hand brushed mine. Last night of summer, she leaned over and kissed me before running home."

She smiles at that story. "What happened after that?"

"We wrote each other for a while. Then the Admiral got home for two years on land, so I spent a lot of time fighting with him, so my letters to her got further and further apart. I didn't like writing about that. And I don't know what was going on in her life, but her letters to me cooled down, as well. Next summer, I came back here, and by then her family had moved."

"Was she pretty?"

He smiles. "Her hair was long and brown, and she'd wear it in two ponytails."

She grins back at that.

He stands up and offers her his hand. "Here. Wanna see something cute?"

"Sure."

Still holding her hand he leads her to the backyard. And while it's true that he hasn't thought of this in years, probably decades at this point, his body knows where it's going. In the far backyard was an old oak tree with a long branch perfect for sitting on about four feet up.

"It seemed higher when I was a kid." He boosts himself up, and she follows. "I don't think the next level up will hold us, but see that branch there?" He points to one about four more feet above them and she nods. "Okay, look on the trunk about three feet above that."

She does, seeing the heart with TM+JM carved into it, and smiles brightly at him. "You're right, that's so cute."

He smiles. "I really liked her."

"You spend a lot of time in this tree?"

"Yeah. I'd sit up there, lean against the trunk, and read."

They sit there for a few more minutes. He's swinging his feet, something else that brings back memories of being a kid. Finally he says, "We should probably get back on the road if we want to make Portland by sundown."

"Okay. Thanks for showing this to me."

"Not a problem."

"I like having images to go with the idea of you as a kid."

They're about ten feet away when she turns around and takes a shot of the tree, and then as they head toward the car she gets one of the porch.

Once they get in the car she says, "You'd prefer I didn't put this on Facebook, right?"

He nods.

"No problem. I just want them for me, and one day, our kids."

He smiles gently at that, liking the idea of telling their kids about his grandfather.


	73. Portland, North Dakota, Kansas

The dream of the nineties might still be alive in Portland, but neither of them saw any proof of that.

What Abby did learn, and granted this was something she had a somewhat firm handle on, but had never really seen in action, is the fact that Tim might be a certifiable genius.

It's not a shock or anything. The guy's a federal agent, bestselling author, and a computer wizard. Tim is not, by any stretch of the imagination, an intellectual lightweight.

But there's the two of them talking geek to each other, which usually leaves the rest of team NCIS in the dust, and then there's Tim with Steve and Dan.

They lived together for a year while at MIT. Tim getting his MS in forensic computing, Steve was getting his PhD in pure mathematics, and Dan was working on a MS in computer learning.

About ten minutes into a mind-blowing dinner (and not just for the conversation. The sushi and sake is beyond excellent. Abby's not the only one who looks like she wants to lick the plate.) the conversation's ranging from Beal's Conjecture to machine learning, to Tim's own sandbox, forensic computing, and back again into esoteric math, with a smattering of string theory, and some astrophysics to round things out before they got into the intricacies of MMORGing.

Abby's no slouch in the science department, and she's got brains coming out the ears (and the MENSA certification to prove it.) But even she got a little lost when the three of them got talking about Dan's current project. She understood they all thought it was sexy as hell and beyond awesome, and she got the basic idea, feed the program a problem with a ton of variables. Then the program crunches the numbers in a bunch of different ways. Pretty straightforward. Then it somehow figures out which of the answers were the best. So it combines the programs that got the best answers, mates them with each other to come up with even better answers. And keeps doing that. On its own. Supposedly, eventually coming up with the ultimate version of whatever formula would answer the question it had originally been asked. But when Tim and Dan got talking shop on the actual programming she and Steve just sat there and stared.

Finally Steve said, "They used to do this for hours. I'd finish my homework, they'd be talking and messing with their computers. I'd go to bed. I'd get up the next morning, they'd still be at it."

"Nah, we just did that to mess with you," Dan said. "We'd break off for Warcraft when you went to sleep. That's why we always had better gear."

Tim just smiled, and the conversation slipped to life in academia, which Tim and Abby didn't know much about first hand, but didn't have any trouble keeping up with.

Finally Dan asked, "So how's being a Fed? Did it work the way they promised?"

Tim nods. "Pretty much. Better really. Met her my first year."

Steve just stared at her for a moment and then said, "You're a cop?"

"No. I'm a forensic specialist."

"She runs our lab."

Steve grins. "Good, the world makes sense again. No one as smart and sexy as you should be a cop."

Abby smiles at Tim, "He's a cop."

"And he's nowhere near as sexy as you are," Dan finishes.

Tim whips out his cell phone. "Lots of sexy at NCIS." And shows them pictures of Ziva and several other co-workers.

"Damn, if I had known all the beautiful women were Feds, I would have taken them up on their offer," Dan said.

"We both got offers from Federal Agencies," Tim adds to explain Dan's comment.

"Machine learning was pretty hot for the FAA and all four branches of the military. But CMU gave me a better deal, so I went with them. I'm still surprised Tim didn't end up with the CIA or IRS, they gave him way better offers than NCIS."

He shrugs a little, Abby staring at him. "The CIA was willing to pay for my doctorate as long as I got it overseas and paid close attention to the people around me while I did it. IRS offered a ton of money and a car."

"Why did you take NCIS?" Abby asks. She knows about the thing with his Dad, and wonders how it actually went down.

"You ever meet Nick Armstrong?" Tim asks.

She nods, he was an agent out of the Mike Franks mold. After he lost an eye and was taken out of field work, he became a recruiter for NCIS.

"He asked me if I was John McGee's kid. I said yes. And he said, 'Screw this behind a desk bullshit. Come with me, you'll put real bad guys in jail, carry a gun, and get the girl, while using your computer skills.'"

Abby looked amused. "Yeah, he would have said something like that."

"It took ten years, but he was right."

"So they do let you carry a gun?" Steve asks.

"Yeah. I'm actually really good with one now."

"Huh." Dan looks really surprised. "We took him shooting once, and he flinched every time the gun fired. He did manage to hit a target, but not his own."

He looks at Abby, "Remember when I told you that Jim Nelson got me through FLETC? That was the help I needed. I couldn't shoot to save my life."

"Not a problem anymore," she says with a little smile.

"Nope."

"If he's showing off, he'll shoot a smiley face in the target at 200 meters."

Dan and Steve just stare at him, and he can see the image of him they have in his mind, twenty-three years old, all three of them at the range, flinching each time anyone fired, and not having anything that anyone would ever consider a good time.

Tim shrugs. "You get to a point where just head shots aren't very challenging."

Dan's shaking his head. "Wow."

Tim grins. "So tell us about Tokyo, you did a fellowship there, right?"

* * *

"Where are you?" Tony asks the next day over the video connection. It always surprises Tim how different MTAC looks from this side of the connection.

"Montana."

"What the hell is in Montana?"

"No speed limits." Tony looks irked by that, but Ziva smiles. "So what's up?"

Tony begins to fill him in on the case and how they'd hit a snag trying to get through the suspect's firewall.

"Okay, let me patch into my work computer. I'll have something for you in a few hours."

"Thanks, McGee."

* * *

"Damn, it's cold," Tim says as they step out of the car, facing Amerly, ND.

DC in January has nothing on North Dakota in October. There were a few ghost towns Abby wanted to see, so, since they had the time, and it was in the right general direction, North Dakota went on the itinerary. Real ghost towns, the stuff of so many legends, how could that not be awesome?

But he's not exactly having a grand time. It's too cold, too dead, too ruined, and with the wind howling away, not nearly quiet enough.

As they stood on a windswept plain, flurries dancing around them, a barn, a church, a feed lot, two houses, and a forgotten crossroads all slowly being eaten by the prairie, Abby said, "How about we head south from here?"

"That sounds like a really good idea to me."

* * *

They were sitting on a bed in a hotel room in Aberdeen, South Dakota, Tim writing an email, Abby updating their Picasa album, when she said, "I got a good one of you."

He came to a stop a minute or so later and looked up. "Let me see."

She flips her computer around to him, and he looks. "Not bad." It's not so much of him, as a picture he happens to be in. It's from the second ghost town they had seen, Reslin. Once upon a time, round about 1900 close to three hundred people had lived there. Now it was just wind, a few buildings, and grass that spread out forever.

He's standing in front of the church, because all of these little towns had churches, and though the homes and barns and farms and schools all slowly fell apart, people kept going to the churches. Every one of those towns they saw, the church was the building in the best upkeep, because it was the last thing abandoned.

But no one had lived in this town since 1952, and even the church was listing about thirty degrees shy of vertical.

He's standing in front of it, the only thing in the shot upright. The church, the ground, rolling in long soft swells, and the three houses still standing in the background were all at different sloping angles. The wind was whipping around, fast and hard, pulling on his coat. Standing there, staring into what looked like endless of miles of nothing that had ever been touched by the hand of another man, he could understand how wind could drive a person mad.

So, it's not any sort of happy picture. It's mostly shades of weather beaten gray and brown, dead grass yellow. His coat is khaki, so he sort of blends into the color scheme. And he's not looking at her as she took it, his face is in profile, eyes far away as he scans the horizon. But yeah, it's a good picture.

"I like it."

She smiles at him. "Thanks."

"Any other good ones?"

She flicks through a few of the other shots, mostly the prairie going on forever and ever with tiny little hints that humans had been there, and vanished, sticking out like wind beaten tombstones.

He goes back to his email, updating Sarah as to how the trip was going, and then finished up. He stands up, stretches, and looks out the window. Downtown Aberdeen isn't precisely a metropolis.

"So, what are you thinking, check out and hit the road, or have some dinner and sleep here?"

Once they got east of the mountains they went back to driving at night. With the moon only a few days past full, the views of the sky were amazing, even if the actual prairie was a bit dull.

"How about we head on? Maybe make St. Louis by morning?"

"Sounds good." He closes up his computer and begins to pack up his gear. When he finished, he sat next to her, and saw she still had that picture up on her computer.

She looks at him looking at it and kisses his cheek.

* * *

"What time is it?" Abby asks.

He gets her asking, they're tearing along an empty road, millions of acres of dried corn stalks all around, top down, sky wide and bright above them, full moon waning amid millions of stars, now is not a good time for her to look away from the road to check the clock.

"11:23."

"Good." She hits the break and pulls them over.

"Okay," he says, wondering what was going on. There isn't anything special he could think of for this time of night.

Once the car stops, she unbuckles and crawls into his lap, straddling his legs and wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Hi," Tim says, looking fairly puzzled.

"It's 11:24, October 23rd."

"Yep." He's nodding, hoping she'll let him in on what's up soon.

"You have no clue why this is important, do you?"

He's shaking his head. "Not a one."

She laughs. "Think hard."

An idea hits, and he squints a little. "I thought that was next week."

"It's today. This time a year ago, you were telling me you loved me over a milk shake."

He smiles. "Best decision I ever made."

"I'll second that. I have something for you."

"Really?" His eyebrows shoot up.

"Yeah." She tugs her purse out from behind his seat.

"I don't have anything for you. Thought I still had a week."

"You think our anniversary is Halloween?"

He shrugs. "Well, for the sex part of it. I guess the date part happened on the 30th."

She looks like she wonders how he could have lost a week, so he says, "We got dressed up in costumes; we went out. I wasn't paying all that much attention to the date. Paying much more attention to the beautiful woman I was with."

"You are forgiven. For the record, it's the 23rd into the 24th."

"Am making a mental note."

She found her MP3 player. Then took a moment to disconnect his and hook hers up to the car stereo. A second after that she noticed that it wasn't going to play with the key in the off position, so she reached over to turn it to on.

"It's nothing big. Just… I suck at poems, and this said it better than I did the nine times I tried. So…"

"You wrote me a poem?"

"I tried. Then I set them on fire."

"No." He sounds pained at that. The idea that Abby wrote him a poem really appeals to him. "Don't do that. I would have liked to have seen them."

"They were bad, really, really bad."

"They were yours." He pets her face and kisses her.

"They were still really bad."

"So was the first one I gave you."

"No, Tim, it wasn't. It was just young and enthusiastic. And the stuff I was coming up with, it was bad, really bad, objectively bad. Breena and Ziva both told me they were bad, too. And not, oh-that's-so-cute-bad, but oh-god-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you-that-you'd- even-try-that-bad."

"I doubt that."

"I bounced the last one off Jimmy, and he winced."

"Ewww." Okay, that probably meant it really was bad. "I still would have liked to have seen them."

"If I ever try again, I'll keep that in mind. Anyway, this isn't bad." She shifts so she's sitting across his lap, feet in the driver's seat, her head on his shoulder, his arms around her, and hit the play button.

Music that was very un-Abby eases out of the speakers. Though, as he listens he thinks it's not so much un-Abby as just not something she'd usually listen to. There's a sweetness to it that does remind him of her. Soft piano, gentle and almost tentative sounding. A woman's voice, breathy with a bit of country sound began to sing.

_Inside my skin_

_There is this space_

_It twists and turns_

_It bleeds and aches_

_Inside my heart _

_there's an empty room_

_It's waiting for lightning_

_It's waiting for you_

_And I am wanting_

_I am needing you here_

_Inside the absence of fear_

_Muscle and sinew_

_Velvet and stone_

_This vessel is haunted_

_It creeks and moans_

_My bones call to you_

_In a separate skin_

_Make myself translucent_

_To let you in, boy_

_I am wanting_

_I am needing you here_

_Inside the absence of fear_

_There is this hunger_

_This restlessness inside of me_

_And it knows that you're no stranger_

_You're my gravity._

_My hands will adore you through all darkness and_

_They will lay you out in moonlight_

_And reinvent your name_

_For I am wanting _

_I am needing you here_

_I need you near_

_Inside the absence of fear._

And then the song drifted off, leaving them on a quiet road in the middle of Kansas, a bit of wind and dried corn stalks rustling against each other in the background.

"I still have all of them, you know? Every poem you've ever written me. They all live in that little mahogany box with the jade rim. And I wanted to do that for you, or something like it. I wanted to give you that feeling, that someone loved you enough to find the right words and lay them at your feet. But my own words weren't working and the harder I tried the worse they got and-"

"Shhhh." He kisses her lips, stilling her flood of nervous words. Then he took the MP3 player from her and hit the repeat button. "It's beautiful. What is it?"

"Jewel, Absence of Fear." She kisses him. "You make me fearless, Tim."

He kisses her. "Thank you." He smiles, glowing at her with the joy of this. "And those are the perfect words."

* * *

For Abby: Fearless Under the Stars

We drive at night

Because we belong there.

In cool dark

and gleaming starlight

touched by time eternal

Glistening silver and blue

The stars are fire

Collected and shared with us by the moon

And the car is earth shaped by man

We are water given form and set walking

And the wind dances around us, flows over your skin

We are not eternal

Will not be

Cannot be

Though the light is

Traveling millions of years

Millions of miles

To touch your face

I would be the light for you

Born of a star

Traveling to the end of the galaxy and beyond

To touch your skin

And you the moon for me

Sharing that caress

Letting the rest of the universe see love made light

Together we'll light the dark

And find a few seconds of immortality.

* * *

The last day of the trip saw them going over the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sunset into night, a crescent moon hanging over hundreds of miles of flame colored leaves.

It was a very good way to end the trip.


	74. Home Again

The downside of vacation is that you get back and find out work didn't stop while you were away. So, walking into the Bullpen, staring at his desk, he saw what looked like a literal ton of mail and reports.

It took four hours to get through it.

And for some reason, Tony and Ziva kept looking up at him and smirking.

"What?"

"Keep looking. You'll find it eventually," Tony said.

"Six or so more inches down," Ziva added.

He felt a thrill when he finally saw it. There was only one thing that he was waiting for in a Fed Ex envelope, at least, only one thing he wasn't sending to their home.

Tony and Ziva were watching him, and both of them were grinning at him when he found that envelope.

"Come on, open it!" Tony said.

Ziva came over to his desk. If she could have opened that envelope by looking at it, the ring inside would have been in full view.

He stared at the overnighted package in his hands, and looked at them. "You can see it tomorrow. I've got to talk to Gibbs before you two see it."

"Talk to me about what?" Gibbs asked, coffee in hand, heading toward his desk.

Tim put the package down and shook his head. "Not here. Tonight, after work?"

"Fine. You two, back to work. Those reports aren't gonna fill out themselves."

* * *

He heads down to autopsy at close to the end of business that day. A good six inches of paperwork needed to be at least initialed by Jimmy.

"Where are you going?" Tony asks as he got up with the piles of paper.

"Autopsy."

Tony gets up, too. "I've got some, too."

Tim raises an eyebrow at him. Asking him to take his papers down made sense. Going with him, not so much so.

Once they were in the elevator Tony flicks it off and says, "Okay, come on, show me."

"No."

"You took Ziva with you when you got the stones. You showed Jimmy the sketch when you used him as cover to see the jeweler. You can at least let me see the finished ring first."

Tim thinks about that for a moment. It's not that Tony's wrong so much as that he's just not right, either. There's a way these things get done, and Tony's just not the guy who gets to see this first. So, Tim sounds a little regretful as he says, "No. I really can't. Gibbs sees this first." Then he smiles at Tony brightly, "But I can ask you to be my best man and stand up with me when I marry her."

Tony grins. "I'll take that. First thing tomorrow though?"

"First thing."

Tony flicks on the elevator and they continued down.

A minute later, while Palmer was initialing away, he asks, "So, the kilt, is it comfortable?"

"Yeah."

"Not too drafty?"

"Didn't bother me."

Jimmy just nods and keeps initialing papers.

Tony's staring at him. "Don't tell me you're thinking of one."

Jimmy shrugs. "Looked good on Tim. Breena thought it was cool. Everyone tells me they're comfy."

"Who is everyone? McScott over there is the only person I know with one."

"Are you sure about that, Anthony?" Ducky adds, coming up behind them. The ten minute long soliloquy on the history of skirts as menswear and the warrior tradition of kilts, from the Roman Legions to the Scottish troops in World War I wearing their kilts in the trenches was on point, informative, and set Tim to smirking widely at Tony.

"And of course," Ducky begins to wrap up, "with the current, and tragically narrow, American understanding of masculine identity, absolutely nothing says I-have-testicles-the-size-of-cantaloupes like wearing one."

Tony drops his papers. Jimmy and Tim laugh. And Ducky settles into a pleased smirk.

* * *

Back in the elevator Tony says, "So they're comfy?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, I've seen you naked. No matter what Ducky says, they aren't the size of cantaloupes, and you don't need that much room to swing around."

Tim gives him a mildly exasperated look that says, _You're missing the point_.

"But that's not the whole reason for wearing one, is it? I mean, you're wearing it in like a third of the pictures Abby posted."

Tim flips off the elevator. "Just one of them. First off, kind of short on space. Traveling with Abby and practically a portable MTAC meant that everything I took with me had to be worn over and over. Secondly," He debates how to, or if, he should say something like this to Tony, and decides going too into it isn't a great idea. But in general... "I imagine it's like how you'd feel in five thousand dollar hand-tailored suit. You wear something like that, you feel good." Tony nods, he gets that. Maybe not how a kilt might make you feel that way, but he certainly gets it for a suit. "Third, you own anything Ziva really likes you in?"

Tony seems to think about that for a moment. Which makes Tim think the answer is no. Because the level of 'likes you in' he's thinking of should not require thought.

But finally Tony says, "Yeah."

"You wear it more often because she likes it?"

Tony smiles. "And Abby likes you in a kilt?"

"Yeah. She does. She really likes me in a kilt. You like Ziva in a skirt?"

"Yeah, who doesn't?"

"Why?"

"Why?" Tony seems deeply puzzled that anyone would ever ask him that. Ziva in a skirt is so obviously a good thing on so many different levels he's having a hard time figuring out how to break that down for Tim.

"Yeah, what about her in a skirt makes you happy?" Tim adds.

"I like the way she looks in one."

"Good. Anything more than that?"

Tony smirks. Tim considers that answer enough and gives him a meaningful look. "Well, Tony, that works both ways."

Tony seems to think about that. "So, you're saying there's a certain ease of access."

"Yeah. Ever get a blow job when you're driving?"

Tony nods, looking surprised. And Tim's not sure if he's surprised that Tim would ask or that he's had at least one, too.

"What? I do vanilla sex."

Tony shakes his head slowly. "Blow job while driving is your idea of vanilla sex?"

"Not if I'm going over sixty." And Tim is very pleased that he managed to say that with a straight face, because the way Tony responded to it was just perfect.

Tony closes his eyes and sighs, then opens them slowly. "Okay, I'm sure you had a point before that deluge of TMI."

"Just, think about it."

"This really isn't the place to be thinking about blow jobs."

"Not that kind of thinking. The mechanics of it. I mean, it's great, as long as she's really careful, otherwise the zipper gets you. And you can't really spread your legs, so she can't get to everything. Kilts don't have zippers and they don't limit your mobility."

"Hmmm." Tony appears to be appreciating that idea.

"Exactly." Tim looks at Tony for a few seconds, thinking about what Tony's been wearing over the last six months. "What does she like you in? You aren't wearing anything more often than usual."

Tony smiles. "Something you don't get to see."

"Ahhh..."


	75. The Ring

Since the move, Gibbs' place has been on the way home. It's only about six minutes, round trip, out of his way.

So, yeah, he'll be a little late getting home. And sure, Abby probably knows something is up, 'cause it's not like he couldn't have given Gibbs the coffees at work. But as cover lies go, coffee delivery is plausible.

He knocks (Tim always knocks. Yes, Gibbs has an open door policy, but he always knocks anyway. He doesn't wait to be let in, but he also doesn't feel comfortable just walking in unannounced.) and opens Gibbs' door feeling... nervous? Probably not. There's no fear here, just a somewhat pleasant buzz of energy. So, excited? Eager? Yeah, probably eager. He wants to show off what's in the tiny black box in his pocket.

He heads down the steps and waits at the bottom one. Gibbs is doing something with what he thinks is a chisel, concentrating hard, and he's not going to interrupt.

Finally Gibbs looks up. "McGee?"

Tim steps off the bottom stair. "I have something I wanted to show you."

He slips the box out of his pocket and puts it on the piece of wood in front of Gibbs. "It's for Abby, and since you're practically her dad, and definitely the guy who'll be giving her away, I wanted to talk to you about this first."

He doesn't look up at Gibbs while he says that. He keeps his eyes on the box while he opens it.

The jeweler had looked at Tim's stones and started playing with them. Eventually, he laid one of the diamonds next to the garnet, fat sides close to it, and the other, on the opposite side and down a bit, creating something that looked like a rose with two black leaves. From there he started to sketch a setting: a delicate vine-like filigree of black titanium. And, once it's on her, it should look like a red rose with black leaves wrapped around her finger.

Gibbs looks at it for a long time, taking it out of the box so he can see all of it from every angle. Tim's on the verge of feeling nervous, until he notices a smile creeping onto Gibbs' face.

Gibbs closes the box and hands it back to Tim. "You did good, Tim."

"Thanks, Boss."

They sit there quietly, while Gibbs goes to get the bourbon, pours them both a shot, and hands him a cup.

"I'm glad it's going to be you."

McGee is prouder of having earned those words than just about anything else in his life.

"Got any advice for me?"

Gibbs laughs a little at that. "Like I told Palmer, I'm the last person you want to go to for marriage advice."

Tim shrugs, that's probably fair enough. He sips his bourbon. "Got any honeymoon advice then? From what I've heard, you've been on more of them than anyone else I know."

Gibbs laughs full out at that and takes a drink of his bourbon. Then he smiles, looking quite amused, and maybe a little surprised at Tim's last comment. Tim realizes Gibbs might be about to make a joke.

"Leave the cuffs at home, cut your ropes twelve to fifteen feet long, thread them under the mattress or box spring. That'll give you plenty of room to play, and you won't have to explain how you broke the bed the next morning."

Okay, not a joke, but that was definitely good-natured teasing, and after a second's thought, where Tim contemplated how few of the beds they ran into while traveling had any useful bits to tie things to, he realizes that was also awfully good advice.

"I'll keep that in mind." Tim simultaneously shakes his head and laughs. Then he remembers something. "I'll be back in a sec."

He sprints up to the car and grabs the brown paper bag. Abby said he should wrap it, but he's a guy, and wrapping presents for other guys just isn't something he does. In fact, as a guy, he didn't even own wrapping paper until he ended up with a half share in Abby's. Then he runs back down to the basement and hands the bag to Gibbs.

"Here. I don't know if you'll like any of them, but when we were traveling I kept thinking you might."

Gibbs opens it and looks inside, then pours the contents out. Four small vacu-sealed bags of coffee fall out. One is basic coffee with chicory from New Orleans. The next was from a roaster in Austin, he figured something called Black Death was probably a dark enough roast for Gibbs. The other two were from Portland and Seattle. In each city he told the guy at the roaster's that he wanted the strongest, darkest, most stand up and eat the spoon while you try to stir it coffee, which resulted in these two bags.

"They might be terrible. I don't know. I don't like my coffee as strong as you do."

Gibbs smiles at him. "Thanks, Tim."

"Okay, I should get home. If Abby asks, I was giving you your coffee."

Gibbs nods, holding the bag of Black Death in his hand, looking fairly interested in it.

* * *

"So..." Tony said.

Tony, Ziva, and Palmer were all waiting at his desk as he walked in the next morning.

"None of you can say anything about this. I'm asking tonight, so no wrecking it!"

"Our lips are sealed," Ziva answered.

"I've been keeping this quiet for eight months, you think one more day is going to break me?" Jimmy said.

"Come on McLovin, show it to us!"

"McLovin?" Tim's sure it's a reference to something movie related, but he doesn't know what.

"Movie trivia later. Get that bad boy out of your pocket and show us!" Palmer said, and then blushed scarlet when Tony began laughing hysterically.

Tim slipped it out of his pocket. He'd ditched the box in favor of the small velvet bag it came with. On the off chance, and by chance he means utter certainty, he ends up hugging Abby, he doesn't want her wondering what that small, hard, square thing in his pocket is.

He opened the bag and then slipped it onto his own index finger, twisting his hand so they could see it from all angles. "Ta da!"

Ziva did that thing where she inhaled sharply and went quite. Which was the reaction he was hoping for. Tony went oddly quiet, too, just staring at it.

Palmer nodded and took it off his finger, studying it carefully. "This is beautiful, Tim. She's gonna love it."

"I really hope so."

Ziva took it from Palmer, and slipped it onto her right ring finger, seeing how it would look on a hand. "It's stunning, McGee."

Ziva was staring at it when Gibbs walked up and gently slapped him upside the back of the head. "Wrong girl, McGee. That one's waiting for DiNozzo to get his ass in gear."

Tim laughed so hard he felt like he was going to hurt something while Tony stared at Gibbs like he'd just been stabbed in the back. When he calmed down, he took it back from Ziva, tucked it into the bag, and slipped it back into his pocket.

* * *

A:N/ I know I've been teasing you with that ring for a while now. Hope you like it. If you'd like to see the garnet (I found a picture of it) you can go to characters are my heroin dot blogspot dot com /2013 /04 /shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_9 dot html Alas, the ring exists only in my imagination, so until my 3d modeling skills get a ton better, I can't post that.


	76. An Immodest Proposal

He'd gone through at least fifty proposal ideas while he waited for the ring to get made. Dinner out? Romantic walk on the beach/mountains/wine country/art museum? (If the ring had gotten done sooner, something along those lines would have been part of his vacation plans.) In bed? Before, during, or after sex? Dinner in? Did food really have to be involved in this? On their anniversary? When the hell was their anniversary? First date ten years ago? God, when was that? Fall? Probably Fall. He could go find the case and look up when that was and from there figure it out. Second first date with The Generics? Would have been great if it wasn't last week. (He checked the ticket stubs, yes he kept them, and yes, Abby was right, it was the 23rd.) First time he met her? In the lab, same place he asked her out the first time? Long declaration of love? Marry me? Say it out loud? Write it down? Sonnet? Blank verse? Text? So many options, and none of them felt really right.

As they were driving across the country, he noticed a lot of Jack o' Lanterns out, and as they kept passing pumpkins an idea started to form, and as he pondered it, he decided he liked it.

* * *

"Do you still have your Marilyn Monroe dress?" Tim asked as they were getting ready for bed that night. He's leaning against the sink, toothbrush in hand, shirtless, but, at least for the time being, his jeans aren't going anywhere, because he needs a pocket. Well, he needs what's in his pocket.

"Yes. Why?" Abby's still dressed. White t-shirt, black and red plaid skirt, and knee socks. She's washed off her makeup and is in the process of taking down her hair.

"Halloween is coming up, and I was thinking we might go out together."

She nods. That'd be fun. "With me as Marilyn?" she turns to face him as she brushes out her hair.

"Yep." Her expression says she knows something is up besides Halloween plans. Tim realizes he's probably beaming at her as they talk, and he's usually naked by this point in their bedtime routine, so the pants are a giveaway that he's got something planned.

"And who would you be?" That was exactly the question he wanted her to ask.

"Arthur Miller."

Abby thinks about that for a moment, and he can feel himself grinning, willing her to figure out what her next line was.

"Weren't they married?"

_Perfect! _"Yes." He looks at her expectantly for a moment. Her eyes widen as she realizes what he's saying, and her mouth falls open as he kneels before her. He's glad he practiced it, because he's able to kneel, get the box out of his pocket, open, and in front of her while simultaneously saying, "Abby, will you marry me?"

She stared at the ring, her fingers hovering over the garnet, eyes bright and wide. "Tim?"

"Yeah?"

"It's so beautiful."

He's smiling so widely at that he feels like his face might crack.

"Stand up."

He does and she jumps into his arms, wrapping her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck. He wasn't braced properly for it, and they both fall to the floor, which he only half notices because she's covering him in kisses and making a very happy noise, that could possibly be the word "Yes" repeated over and over very fast in a high-pitched, excited voice.

After a minute, she pulls back, sitting on his thighs, grinning an impossibly wide and happy grin. He sits up, and kisses her again, deeply this time, lips slipping over hers in soft caresses. He notices the ring is still in the box, still in his hand, so he takes it out, and by feel alone, slides it onto her finger.

She breaks the kiss to look at it on her hand. "It's perfect."

He grins at her. "You're perfect. I just had to find the ring that went with that."

"You did." She takes it off to really look at it. "What is it?"

"Garnet, black diamonds, black titanium."

"It's so beautiful." She handed it back to him, and held out her hand, and once more he slipped it onto her finger. "It's like the thing my hand always needed but didn't know it was missing."

He brushes his fingers through her hair as she says that, staring into her eyes.

"It's the thing, well, one of them, I've always wanted to give you."

"One of them?"

He brushes his hand, his fingers trailing along her arm, across the tattoo they have in common. "There's one." He kisses her again, softly this time, hints of suggestions of touch. His fingers drift back to hers. "And one of these days, I'll give you a wedding ring." He lifts her hand to his mouth, kissing the tips of each finger, then the base of her palm, lipping gently over her wrist, and then tracing his fingers lightly up her arm as she shivered and squirmed at his touch.

His gaze held hers as he said, "I'd like to give you my name."

She's smiling so brightly now, the kind of smile that always lights him up, and she kisses him, then says, "Abby McGee."

He can't hold in how good that feels, and just smiling, or grinning can't get it out, so warm, happy laughter bursts out of him. When he stops he kisses her again, and then guides her hand behind her, and holds her wrist lightly behind her back. With his free hand he traces from her shoulder to her belly, lingering along the side of her breast, before drifting to the hem of her shirt. Lifting her shirt, he rubs his knuckles gently against her stomach. Tim breaks the kiss, holds her gaze and quietly says, "And not too long after that, I'll give you a baby."

"Yes!" Her eyes are gleaming, and she scoots forward a bit, breasts pressed against his chest, body warm and encouraging. He's holding her left hand in his, but her right is free, so she caresses his face with it. Fingers skittering from eyelid to cheek to lips, he closes his eyes and leans into the touch. She kisses his eyelids, the tip of his nose, and then settles on his lips.

A minute later, he breaks the kiss and says, "I want to give you a home."

She kisses him long and deep, then pulls back, radiant smile on her face and a look of deeply content tenderness in her eyes. "I already have one, Tim. Anywhere you are is my home."

He smiles, or really, keeps smiling, he's been smiling this whole time, because he can't not smile, and lets go of her wrist, spanning the small of her back with his hands, and pulling her tighter to him while lifting her shirt off.

His fingers trace over her shoulders, down her arms, raising goosebumps on her skin, as he kisses her jaw and neck.

"I love you, Abby."

She kisses him again, clinging to him, lips sweet and warm. "I love you, too."

She begins a slow rolling motion, and he groans softly, then takes her hips in his hands and holds her still. "Okay, if we're going to keep doing this, we've got to move, because these pants are going to cut me in half if I don't adjust myself."

She begins to laugh: loud, bright, and happy. Then stands and offers him her hand.

"Then let's get you adjusted. It'd be a tragedy if you were cut in half."

He stands up, and as he does so, she reaches for the top button on his jeans. A second later, he's naked in front of her.

"Better?"

"Almost." He unhooks her bra, and kneels in front of her, pulling off her panties, leaving on the plaid skirt and knee socks. He smiles widely at her. "Now, I'm a whole lot better."

"You and your Catholic school girl kink."

"Me and my you kink. What do I want a Catholic school girl for when I've got you?"

"Good answer."

He stands up, stepping in close, his body next to hers, close enough to feel the heat, and for his penis to rub against the skirt, but the rest of him not touching, and then looks her up and down.

She licks her lips, and he leans down to lick her, stroke her tongue with his.

She sighs as he does that, and moves a fraction of an inch closer, still not touching anywhere other than tongues and penis.

"What do you want tonight?" he whispers to her.

"Take me."

"Oh yes." He pulls her flush against him, reveling in the feel of her skin on his and her body tight and quivering in his arms.

He kisses her, taking the lead, his lips and tongue calling the dance while she squirms against him, rocking her hips against his. This time, when his hands settle on her hips, it's to encourage the motion, to pull her harder against him.

Without breaking the kiss, he picks her up. She gets the idea and helps, wrapping her legs around his hips as he carries her to their bed. He sets her on the edge of the bed, and stands between her legs. She looks up at him, eyes wide, lips wet.

"You are so beautiful."

She smiles at that and lies back on the bed, her hips flush with the edge, legs dangling to either side of him.

There were a few careful measurements Tim took when they got their bed made. One of which was how high off the floor the top of the mattress would be. Specifically, it's exactly the right height for him to kneel and go down on her, or stand and fuck her.

And with her laid out on the bed in front of him, he finds himself eagerly contemplating both happy options.

His fingers trace up the inside of her legs, light teasing brushes of skin on skin. He gets to her hips and flips up the skirt so it covers her stomach and bares her sex.

"I love you. Love looking at you like this. Naked and open for me. Love this so much."

She sits up, and kisses his erection, licking the tip. "Love you. Love seeing you like this, standing over me, hot and hard."

He groaned at those words, feeling them like a flush of heat through his dick.

He leaned forward to kiss her, stroking her tongue with his, feeling her hand wrap around him and pull. He went with it, enjoyed it for a moment and then broke the kiss and took her hand away.

She pouted a little at that. "You can do me tomorrow. Remember, you asked me to take you?"

She nods.

"Lay down."

And she does, a grin on her lips.

He kneels between her legs, kissing his way up her thigh, stroking her calves lightly. He pauses at the top of her thigh, and spends another moment just looking at her. "So, so beautiful," he murmurs before flicking his tongue lightly over her.

She jerked a little at the touch and then sighed. He settled into it, slow and lazy, not rushing this. His hands continuing to ghost along her thighs while his tongue drew small firm circles over her clit.

She moaned, and he pulled back enough to say, "Like that?"

"God, yes, don't stop."

"Not until you're arching against my mouth and quivering on my tongue."

"Ohhh..." She rolled her hips against him, and he went back to licking. He sped up slowly, keeping her at a slower pace than she would have liked, but he wants this to take a while. Wants her begging him before he gets her off.

He started with one finger, not in her, just softly teasing. Feather light touches over her lips, barely grazing against her vagina. She growled a little at him, frustration at the teasing lack of penetration.

He continued to just lightly pet, and stopped licking just long enough to say, "Tell me what you want."

She moaned again as his tongue slowed down, but increased in pressure. He's just rolling it over her clit, long slow strokes designed to make her squirm.

"Fuck, Tim, get me off!"

His tongue started to move just slightly faster, and he added a second finger, two of them slipping over her lips, stroking her, not entering.

"Little more specific?" He'd grin if his lips weren't busy, but he's enjoying teasing her like this.

"Stop fooling around with those fingers and fuck me with them!"

And so he did. He pulled back just long enough to suck on both of them, make sure they were good and wet, and then thrust them in, fast and hard, while his tongue went back to licking, this time fast and light.

He couldn't see her do it, but he could imagine it, and he was fairly sure she threw her head back, arched her back and neck, and clenched her hands in the sheets. He knew for a fact that she started a long stream of "Fuck baby, yeah, just like that, fuck, oh..." sweet profanity that made him feel like a sex god.

Then words stopped, they morphed into a high-pitched, almost panting moan, and her legs wrapped tight around his neck and shoulders as her body jerked against his.

He let her come down for a moment, just long enough to stop twitching, then stood, pinned her hands to the bed above her head, and slipped into her.

He hissed at it: hot, wet, slick, and snug all perfect and all at once.

He's taking his time at this, enjoying the feel of her on him. She's arching against him, her legs around his hips, feet crossed over the small of his back.

He can feel it building, feel himself start to move faster, start to give into the pleasure and the desire to thrust. She's looking at him, kissing him, licking his neck. He feels her teeth on his ear, and her body squeezing tight around him. And that does it, sets him off, small fireworks burst along his spine and balls, and he thrusts hard and deep.

A minute or two later she smiles at him, and kisses him gently. Eventually they untangle, and clean up, and then they're in bed together, relaxing and inching toward sleep. He's lying on his back, and she's snuggled into his side, her head on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. He's stroking his fingers absently up and down hers, feeling the ring there.

"What does an Arthur Miller costume even look like?" Abby asks.

"It doesn't matter. No one notices the guy standing next to Marilyn Monroe."

"Marilyn does." Abby smiles.

Tim thinks about it. "It might involve a pipe. And I think glasses."


	77. An Announcement

They made a quick detour on the way into work the next morning.

"Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs..." She's skipping into his house. Gibbs looks up from his cereal, meets Tim's eyes, and Tim nods quickly as Abby bounds into his arms, all but singing, "We're getting married! You'll be there right? You'll go to the church with us and walk me down the aisle and give me away when we get MARRIED?"

He pulls her a little tighter, because she's been bouncing up and down this whole time, and it's hard to hug someone who's bouncing, and kisses her forehead. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Abbs."

She looks up at him, and he can see hints of fear that there'll be a repeat of Jimmy's wedding. "No matter what, Abby, I'll be there."

She grins again.

* * *

The next detour in the usual get to work routine led them to Autopsy.

If there was ever a good clue that Abby was happy as happy could be, it was the fact that she walked (okay, skipped) straight into Autopsy without even pausing as the doors slid open.

Tim was a few steps behind, so he heard, "Abigail, what brings—" Then Ducky saw him behind, took into account the wide, happy smile on Abby's face and gathered her into a warm hug. "I assume, congratulations are in order?"

"Yeah, they are, Ducky," Tim answered.

"Wonderful!" he said, and then pulled out of the hug, motioning Tim closer, and hugged him as well. Then he stepped back and said, "Come now, let me see," motioning for Abby's hand.

Palmer headed in as Ducky was saying that. He made a bee-line for Abby. "Finally. I've been waiting since February for this!"

"February?" Abby asked, looking at Tim. He smiled and shrugged a little.

Jimmy took her hand, looked at the ring on her finger, and kissed her cheek. Then he looked at Tim and nodded. "Good job."

"Thanks."

"Now, what?" Jimmy said to Abby.

"We get talking details. For example, are you my best man or man of honor?"

Tim doesn't think he's ever seen Jimmy look so pleased. After a few seconds, he answers, "As long as I don't have to wear chiffon, any title you like works."

"No chiffon. I can handled that. How about taffeta?"

For a second Jimmy looks really startled, because it's entirely possible Abby isn't joking, but she is, so he laughs, and finally says, "Only if it's red, and there better be some killer heels to go with it."

She kisses him, and he pulls her and Tim into a hug.

Jimmy kisses her one more time before letting both of them go. "Do you want me to tell Breena?"

"We've already got a lunch date set. Assuming no case pops up, you're invited, too." Then she remembered Ducky was standing there. "I mean, if you don't need him for anything."

"As long as we are not called upon to render our assistance for a case, I assure you, Jimmy will be free for wedding planning duties."

* * *

The last stop on the tell everyone tour took them up to the Bullpen. Gibbs had already gotten there, and was sitting at his desk, but Tony and Ziva were nowhere to be seen.

Tim's look asked Gibbs if he knew where they were, and Gibbs just shrugged. Tony and Ziva weren't living together, but they certainly came into work together about four out of five days. And they didn't yet seem to have the how to do that and show up precisely on time thing down pat yet.

Tim certainly understood that. It takes a while to work the kinks out of more or less living in two apartments.

So he sat down and turned on his computers. Abby settled on the edge of his desk, watching what he was doing.

Three minutes later, when they came in, Tony grumbling about his dry cleaning being on one side of town and Ziva's place an hour away on the other, he had a pretty good idea of what was up.

"No clean shirts?" he asks as Tony heads for his desk.

Tony glared and said, "Yeah."

"They make these things called irons, and if you apply it to a clean shirt, you don't need to have it dry cleaned."

"Sure." During all of this, Ziva's been leaning against her desk, staring at Abby, and grinning. Abby's grinning back at her, left hand conspicuously visible. Which was when Tony really noticed that she was sitting there, on the edge of Tim's desk, where she usually isn't.

Ziva sees him finally get it and then closes on Abby, both of them hugging. He half hears Abby telling Ziva something about team bride meeting for lunch as the two of them look at the ring.

Tony breaks into a wide smile and gently punches Tim on the shoulder. "You finally did it!"

"Yeah."

"Good! Stand up." Tim did and got hugged again. Which, of course, was still happening when Vance came in.

"Anything I should know?"

"Wedding soon," Gibbs answered.

And thus, Abby got her tenth or so kiss of the day, and Tim's hand was shaken, and one more layer of congratulations were offered. Which was followed by a fairly gentle back to work from Gibbs.


	78. Halloween

It turns out that an Arthur Miller costume isn't all that hard to assemble. The glasses were a little tricky; almost no one sells that style of horn rimmed glasses, let alone without any sort of corrective lens, but Tim has legendary levels of Google-Fu so he found a pair. But a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, corduroy pants, and the pipe were easy to find.

And so he was ready to go not too long after they got home from work on Halloween.

And after getting ready, Abby exiled him from their bedroom, and got to work on Marilyn.

There aren't a lot of trick-or-treaters in their building, but he fielded the knocks on their door. Most of the kids didn't even seem to notice he was in any sort of costume. Some of the adults who went with them did, and looked at him a little curiously.

Between knocks, he looks over the edits he'd gotten back on Deep Six Four, now tentatively titled The Traitor Within. Nothing too drastic so far, but he's also only fifty pages in.

He's really thinking about one comment in the margin when he realizes she's standing in the doorway to his office.

He looks up at her: platinum hair, red lips, and that white dress, swallows hard, and says, "We might not make it to that party."

"You really like this?" she asks, stepping in, twirling a little. He immediately notices something else, this time, she isn't wearing panties.

"God Abby, yeah, I like that. You know what I did when I got home on Halloween 2006?"

She smiles. "Cried about your missing Ice Queen?"

"Who? Trust me, by the end of that night, she was gone... Wait a minute..." He squints a little, remembering something. "You did that on purpose. We were still at work when we got the call. So were you. You went home to change!"

She smiles and looks innocent. "And if I did?"

"That's just mean. You knew my date was over, and then you dressed like that, and told me I couldn't touch."

"Please, you teased me all the time, too."

"When have I ever teased you like that?"

"Really? This from the man who promised to tie me up and didn't."

It takes him a minute to figure that out, but once he knew what she was talking about he had a comeback ready. "You're right, I still owe you one for that. And Marilyn, you're so gonna get tied—"

His phone rings, followed a second later by hers. And if both of their phones are ringing that means he has to get it. He picks it up, sees Gibbs on the caller ID. "I hate Halloween." He answers the phone. "Who's dead?"

"Sailor out of Allendale. Texting you the address."

"Great. Be there soon."

He looks at her, and she smiles, nodding as she listens to her half of the call out. Then she hung up her phone.

"The first time I wore this, you kept undressing me with your eyes, and I kept fantasizing about you and me in my office. I kept imaging you sitting on my desk chair, me in your lap, and the way you'd look at me as I slid onto you." She grins at him. "Looks like we'll get a chance at that tonight."

He's giving her his _you're evil _look. "Don't say things like that to me now. I'm already going to have a hard enough time focusing on the case."

"Hard being the operative word." She gives him a slow kiss while squeezing him gently through his pants. "See you later." And with those words, and a little skirt flaring twirl, she heads toward her car.

* * *

Tony sees him first as he gets to the scene. "I know you're a writer, but this is walking cliché territory."

"It's Halloween, Tony," he says as he begins pulling on the little blue booties that protect the crime scene from his shoes and vice versa.

"You're going out as a writer for Halloween? The idea is to be someone you aren't."

"I don't usually look like this, do I? You'll figure it out when you see Abby. We were getting ready to go out."

"What could Abby possibly be wearing to make that make sense?"

Gibbs looks him over and says one word, "Marilyn."

Tim nods.

Tony looks him up and down. "You're Miller?"

"No. I'm DiMaggio," Tim shot back, perfect deadpan.

Tony laughs and then looks at Tim, genuinely bummed for them missing out on their Halloween plans. "And once again Halloween strikes."

"Yeah."

Gibbs hands him the camera. "Get on it, Miller. Unlike the Ice Queen, Marilyn'll still be there when we're done."

* * *

And unlike the Ice Queen, Marilyn was waiting for him when he got back to the lab. And yeah, technically he didn't have anything to do down here right now. But the computers in her lab work just as well as the ones up at his desk.

And as long as he's doing something at least vaguely related to the case, he's still working.

Okay, so watching her sip Caff-Pow, perfect red lips wrapped around the straw, sucking gently, might not be precisely the definition of doing something vaguely related to the case, but… Fuck it, he's goofing off, there's no good excuse for it, but he's remarkably unlikely to stop anytime soon.

And just as he settles in to watch, as she's grinning at him, lightly licking the tip of the straw, and stroking it between her fingers, he feels the hand connect with the back of his head.

"Less screwing in the lab, more catching killers."

Abby puts her drink down, grins, and says, "Gibbs, I'll have you know, that as a forensic scientist of the highest caliber, I can do both at once!"

Tim just stands there and tries not to blush too hard.

"Fine, Abbs, but what about Miller over there?"

"He's helping me do both at once," she says with a pretty smile. Which was when Major Mass Spec beeped. "Observe, Gibbs, Major Mass Spec is about to reveal to us…" She reads the print out, looks at it like it was wrong, and read it again. "Weird. The makeup Lt. Hennen was wearing was dosed with Rohypnol."

"Just straight Rohypnol?" Tim asks.

She hands him the print out. "If there's anything else in there, I'm not seeing it."

He shakes his head. It's a combo of gray face paint and Rohypnol, a lot of Rohypnol. _Halloween._ "Well, that's not gonna work, at all. You have to ingest it. Might explain why his head was bashed with the skillet, Boss. Whoever did this didn't intend to kill him at all, or at least didn't plan to kill him there. But the plan to sedate him didn't work and they had to grab for whatever was at hand."

Gibbs is already on his phone. "Ziva, search the whole house, I want you to find the makeup the Lt. was wearing." He hangs up. "With me, McGee, you can moon over her later. You—" He shifts focus to Abby.

"I'm already getting samples of everything else he had in his house. Maybe this was supposed to be part of some sort of chemical cocktail. McGee?"

"Chemical cocktail designed by someone who doesn't know anything about biology." Then he notices that's not the sort of comment Abby was looking for. "Yeah?"

"What was the costume supposed to be?"

"Zombie."

She looks over the samples in front of her. "Get me the latex prosthetics, the glue for it, the fake blood, and any other makeup colors he had, and fake teeth if there were any."

Tim's nodding. He knows where she's going with this. "He wasn't finished getting dressed when we found him. I'm guessing something slowed him down, and instead of finding him passed out in costume, they found him putting his makeup on."

Tim's taking a step closer to Abby, further away from the door and Gibbs when a hand snakes out, grabs him by the back of the collar, and yanks him out of the lab. "Catching bad guys, McGee."

"Yes, Boss."

"Find out what slowed him down and who would have known when he should have gotten home."

"On it, Boss."

* * *

He got down for five minutes two hours later. Though this time it was business, delivering the samples Ziva had collected.

At least, he had intended to be businesslike about it. But she was standing at her computer, long legs on display, curved beautifully from those ridiculously cute high heels, the skirt just skimming along the backs of her knees, and this time, no white outline of '50s style panties.

He placed the samples on her work table, and didn't exactly sneak up behind her, but he didn't need to be very quiet, her music was on loud and she was into her work.

She jerked a little when his lips landed on her neck as he pressed up behind her, and then relaxed and smiled.

"The last time you wore this, I could see your panties through the dress. This time you aren't wearing any. Are you teasing me more this time or last time?"

Her hand slid from the mouse to his thigh, stroking gently. "Depends, which did you like better?"

"Not sure. I'm liking both options quite a bit. There's something really fine about you in those conservative, white, 1950s panties. And there's something" he inched her skirt up until he could feel skin under his fingers, then his hand slid up her leg, stroking over her hip to caress her pussy gently, "scorching hot about this."

She leaned against his chest and sighed as he touched her. After a few seconds, when she moaned quietly, he pulled his hand away, kissed her shoulder, and stepped back. She turned to face him, once again flaring the skirt, but not holding her hands to her sides, so he got a quick glimpse of thigh. He took the two fingers he had been touching her with, and holding her gaze, licked them clean, biting the top of his index finger lightly.

Then he nodded to the table and smiled. "The samples you asked for."

"You're evil."

"Thank you." He winked began to head for the Bullpen.

"Are you close?"

He thought that was an odd question. With the exception of him doing himself, she's seen every way he gets off, so she should know what close looks like. But maybe she's setting something up with this, so he grins and says, "Nah, just hard."

She didn't roll her eyes, but he has the sense she wants to. "The case."

"Oh. Yeah…" It takes a second for him to switch gears. "Think so, Gibbs and Tony have a guy in interrogation. And in a minute, I'll be back up there looking through every electronic record he's got."

"Well, hurry up."

"On it, Boss!"

* * *

He was sitting behind the glass, watching Gibbs and Tony interrogating the guy. His phone buzzed. Text from Abby.

_Who's in interrogation?_

_Gibbs and Tony._

_No, who are they talking to?_

_Jim Sloan, he's called like ten times this week, and was keeping an eye on the vic._

_Wrong guy._

_?_

_Unless he's also the guy who sold our vic the makeup, he's the wrong guy._

_Nope, didn't do that._

_Good. Send Gibbs down soon._

_I will._

And while it's true that you don't interrupt Gibbs in interrogation, flashing a text to Tony is completely acceptable.

He sees Tony read it and nod. Then he hands the phone to Gibbs who looks at it, glares at the suspect, and then both of them silently leave the room, leaving Sloan just sitting there, wondering what the hell was going on.

Meanwhile, he heads for his computer, time to tell it to find out where the vic got that makeup.

* * *

Three minutes later, Gibbs and Tony are in the lab, and Abby is doing show and tell.

"So, you know, whenever we have a chance at a tampered with product, the first step is to figure out how the tampering happened…" she explains how she took the samples, checked the tubes for any trace of tampering, and noticed the red, the unopened tube, had a tamper proof seal over the lid, which made her think the others would have too.

That got her interest, because makeup tubes like this rarely have those seals on them.

Some googling found that there is no Kyllyn Tyme Monster Makeup.

Then she began carefully taking the tubes apart and found that yes, there is some makeup in all of them, and also powdered drugs.

Major Mass Spec was doing its thing, figuring out what was in each of those tubes, but whatever it is, it probably wasn't intended to be sold to Hennen.

Tim got there just as she was saying that, he added. "Credit card purchase this morning. Spirit-Halloween in Allendale. He got the makeup, hair spray, and a few other things. I'm guessing he got a hold of the wrong makeup."

Gibbs nods at him, and says to Abby, "Good work Abbs."

She smiles, accepting the kiss on her cheek as Gibbs turns to head off. "DiNozzo, take Ziva..."

"On it, Boss."

"McGee, by the time they get there, I want them to know about everyone who works there and who is likely smuggling drugs through the place."

Tim nods and heads for Abby's computer.

"Upstairs, McGee."

"Upstairs main computer is already digging into Rohypnol dealers in the DC area. Upstairs secondary computer is looking into Rohypnol producers, matching formulas to what Abby's found. Don't worry, Boss, by the time they get there, they'll have what they need."

Gibbs just stared at him for a second, _the no fucking around_ look. And Tim nodded, turning towards Abby's computer.

It was a half-hour drive with Ziva at the wheel, and by minute twenty-seven he had sent Tony the names of three guys who worked there, all of whom had sealed juvie records for drug issues. The idea that they had moved onto bigger and better things wasn't impossible.

He'd also sent the name of the guy who ran the shop, because some fast checking showed that he was in debt up to his eyeballs, and fast, easy money might be very tempting for a sixty-year-old on the verge of losing everything and having to start over again.

And then he turned to Abby, who was behind him, working with the makeup and the rest of the evidence, Marilyn costume covered in a lab coat, gloves on her hands, kissed her lightly on the nape of her neck, and whispered, "Now I'm close," before heading upstairs.

The image of her grinning at him, eyes bright through lab glasses, stayed in his mind as he rode the elevator up to the bullpen, heading to his own computers to see if they could link this into a bigger drug case.

* * *

It was a little after one when Abby got the text from McGee. _Done. Down in 10._

Which means… fifteen maybe twenty minutes-twenty-five if he really wants to tease her, but she's hoping he's more interested in quick today, because she's feeling awfully ready -that seven-year-old fantasy of sitting him at her desk and watching his face as she slides onto him can come true.

Watching Tim experience pleasure is one of her great joys.

When something gets to him, it really gets to him, and he doesn't try to hide it. At least, not from her. Like, the first time he bit into a deep-fat fried pickle. He was staring at it warily, not crazy about the idea, because he thought it sounded gross and the fried okra didn't do anything for him. But she nudged his hand, fairly sure he'd like it, and he put it in his mouth, still looking like this whole ideas was insane, and bit down.

And she got to see it on his face, the way hot, crispy, salty, sour, sweet, and juicy all hit at once. That almost pained expression of _How on earth have I gone my entire life not knowing something this good exists? _and got to hear the soft, almost moan of a sound that came out of him as he started to chew.

She doesn't know if he knows that she does this, but sometimes she'll just stand in the doorway to his office, and watch him listen to music.

He never closes the door to his office, so she doesn't feel like she's intruding or sneaking, but sometimes she comes home and she'll hear his music, so she'll go over and watch. And most of the time he sees her and waves her in and they talk for a bit.

But sometimes the music just sounds right. And she'd be hard pressed to explain what right is, but she knows it when she hears it, and she knows when she peeks in she'll see him lounging in his chair, eyes closed, head back, just letting it all wrap around him, and those days, when he just lets himself go, lets the pleasure of it take him over, he doesn't notice her, and she can just stand there and watch to her heart's content.

He hums along sometimes, which she assumes means that it's a piece he's heard before. And others he's just silent, index and middle finger of his left hand sort of moving with whatever melody or beat especially has him in its spell.

And she'll stand there and watch, loving that he can get so into the things he loves.

And, of course, watching is a treat, but knowing you're causing that sort of pleasure is even better.

* * *

There are perks to running your own department. For example, Abby has the keys to the lab. When she locks up, it's locked.

Since it's high security, the janitorial staff isn't allowed in there. Sure, she has to keep the lab tidy herself, but right now that works especially well for her.

Because right now, she's pulling McGee into her office, and she knows the doors are locked and no one is going to come in.

Technically, it's not Halloween any more. Halloween ended an hour ago. But they haven't slept yet, and she still believes in the idea that it's not tomorrow until you sleep. And it's still Halloween five hundred miles west of here, so that counts, right?

And he's kissing her like he's been waiting all night for this, well he has, and so has she for that matter, and the only thing not perfect about it is he can't fist his hand in her hair, which she really likes, but his hand on her neck and the other cupping her tush, keeping her firmly pressed hips to hips against him is awfully nice, too.

He pulls back to just look at her, eyes sliding up and down her body, and she smiles at him, loving that. She's always loved the ways he looks at her, and how it's changed over the years. The goofy grin he gave her back in '06, which she just about melted at, is gone. Today his eyes are hungry, confident, and if the term eye fucking means anything, it's how he's looking at her right now.

He tilts her head back, thumb on her jaw, and lays a line of open-mouthed, wet kisses along her throat down the v-neck of her dress while she's pushing them back into her office.

She's unbuttoning his shirt. Not bothering to take it off, too much effort to take it off, but she wants his skin, wants the feel of his heartbeat against hers and the smell of his skin. And he's stripping out of his pants, or at least pushing them down to his knees. She's not paying enough attention to that to know for sure.

What she does know is he lands on her desk chair, and a second later she's straddled him, realizing this chair really needs to be a few inches wider to do this properly, but for now, they'll make do. Her one leg snugs in next to his, and the other ends up over the arm of the chair, and a second after that, she's holding him steady, and sliding down, watching him as she does it.

He doesn't close his eyes. He almost never does. But they're three quarters shut right now, and he's got that look, that _this is so good my eyes want to roll back in my head but I can't not watch it_ look. And that always kills her. The way it feels so good but he won't shut her out of it. How he never, not when they're having sex, slips entirely into himself.

His head is back, the line of his throat long and laid bare for her, and she wants to lick it, but she can't see him if she does that, and that look, those almost closed eyes, lips wet and red, just barely open, teeth gritted. It's too good to not watch.

The sound he's making is not a moan. Not loud enough for that. A very long, deep exhale? Probably. Followed by a sharp, fast inhale.

And she can't lick, not without breaking eye contact, so she strokes her fingers down his throat, down his chest.

His eyes slowly open all the way back up. His pupils are blown, wide and black, a fine rim of olive green around them. She's read about eye color darkening with excitement, but that's fiction. Though he is excited, and his eyes are darker than normal, it's the lighting in here that's doing it. Indoor lighting often makes his eyes look olive drab. Outside, or in good indoor light, his eyes are a sort of slightly warm-toned jade color. Jade of the stone, not the intense blue-green color often called jade. But that light, milky green, a color that makes her think of Asian-style dragons.

"My dragon." She didn't mean to say it out loud, and he looks a little confused at it, but she just smiles, and he lets it go.

His hips start a long slow roll, more grinding his pelvis against hers than trying to thrust, and that makes her want to close her eyes and throw her head back. And she does, feeling his fingers trace down her throat, along her chest, feathering over her breasts, and settling on her hips, encouraging her to move.

Sitting in this tiny little chair, she's in charge of any sort of vertical motion. She adds a grind of her own, which is mostly for her, and a good firm squeeze, which is for him, and this time there's no mistaking the sound coming out of him, definitely a moan.

A very pleased moan.

He cants his hips up, that gets a little more friction going, and she starts to ride him properly, as he gets his thumb into the action, finding her clit and stroking in fast, small circles.

This isn't going to take long. Hours of teasing, anticipating, and wanting tends to make for fast orgasms once the actual sex starts.

And there is nothing, nothing at all, like watching Tim McGee come.

He's so amazingly beautiful as he gets off. So intensely present. When he's coming, there's absolutely nothing else going on with him, he's entirely in that moment, with her, and she treasures getting to be there for it. And it blows her mind that she gets to see this. Gets him, laid completely open in front of her, every feeling, every ounce of pleasure naked to her.

She watches him come down, basking in her own post-orgasmic glow, as well. Now his eyes are closed, and a blissed out expression, and a little smile, on his face.

She thinks about the first time she saw this, and how different it is now.

Ten years ago, he was a sweet kid: a nervous, adorable, occasionally-pouty, but mostly just a ridiculously sweet kid. And sex with that Tim McGee was a treat. A very different treat. That was the joy of showing a man he's desirable. And especially in guys who don't get treated like that a lot, seeing them feel it, seeing them know it, giving them the gift of wanting them, that's amazing.

And Tim… she doesn't know if anyone ever took the time to want him properly before she got a hold of him. She knows he had a steady girl at MIT, but the way he responded to her, the flower seeing the sun for the first time look she got out of him, that made her think no one ever did.

But he's not that kid anymore. A lot of that sweetness has burned off over the years. Sometimes she misses that. He's still playful, and there's still a very deep gentleness to him, but he's not adorably sweet anymore. He's harder now, sharper than he probably ever could have dreamed of ten years ago.

He's confident now. He's the man who can open himself like this, lay himself in front of her and let her in. He couldn't have done that ten years ago. And ten years ago, even if he could have, she wouldn't have known what to do with it.

But now he's a man who trusts not just his own worth, but her ability to recognize and value it.

She kisses him, pulls back, watching his face as he relaxes. "I love you, Tim. So much."

He smiles slowly, stroking his fingers, those long, nimble fingers over her cheek and jaw. "Love you, too."

She twines her fingers with his, looking at the ring he had made for her bracketed by two of his fingers. He sees her looking at it.

"Getting used to having it there?"

"Starting to. It'll catch the light in my peripheral vision, and I'll wonder what that red flash is, and then look and feel all tingly."

He smiles at that, too, looking very pleased. Then he sighs and lets his head drop back. "Going to fall asleep right here if we don't move soon. You want to crash here or head home?"

She's feeling awfully satisfied and lazy right now, not really wanting to go anywhere. But she does want to sleep tonight, and that means unpinning her hair.

"Home. Don't really want to move, but I can't sleep with my hair pinned up like this."

He's nodding, reaching over for the tissues. They clean up, fast, and in a few minutes are heading toward his car. And while it's true the Porsche is still his, and the roadster is still hers, usually whichever one of them happens to get to the driver's side door first ends up driving. They both carry both keys now.

"How about I drive, and you can take your hair down while we head home. That way we can be asleep five minutes after getting in the door."

"That sounds really good."

Half an hour later they were home, snuggled into bed, him spooned behind her in their usual sleeping position, and she was just about asleep, when he asks, "What were you saying about dragons?"

She thinks for a second. "Oh. Your eyes are jade-colored. They make me think of those carved Asian style dragons. The Chinese ones with no wings."

"Okay." A long, quiet minute passes, while they both breathe softly and edge closer to sleep.

She felt it when he put two and two together. "I'm your dragon?"

"Yeah."

He bit her very gently on the shoulder. "Grrrrr."

* * *

A/N: Okay, so what color are Tim McGee/Sean Murray's eyes? Here's the link to the shot I was basing my description off of. fanpop dot com /clubs /sean-murray /images /8929433 /title /sean-murray-ncis-photo Granted, if you scroll through that collection, you'll see what I mean about olive green v. jade. One color they aren't, emerald.


	79. And The Planning Begins

Some things about planning the Sciuto-McGee wedding were pretty easy. The date for example, that took all of nine seconds, eight of which were spent looking at a calendar.

Of course it's a Halloween wedding, when else would the Elf Lord marry his Gothic Wildflower? (Okay, technically it's an All Saint's wedding, because Halloween 2014 is a Friday night and a Saturday wedding is easier for everyone.)

And of course, if it's a Halloween wedding, then it has to be in costume. Ideas, themes, plans were considered and scuttled. Renfaire wedding: both of them thought that was awfully cool, especially given the costumes, but, then they looked at their friends, and decided that torturing all of them wasn't the goal of their wedding.

Basically, they had been talking about it, explaining the idea, and then Gibbs visibly winced. And that killed Renfaire.

Which lead to a question that got asked at each new idea before anyone outside of the immediate wedding planning team (Abby, Palmer, Breena, and Tim) got in on it. "Can you see Gibbs in..." killed a lot of the themes. Punk? No. Goth? No.

"A kilt?" Abby asked as they looked at Highland themed ideas.

"You're kidding, right?" Tim replied.

"He'd look great in a kilt!" Breena added.

"Gibbs, not Ducky," Tim said.

Breena just stared at him.

Tim shook his head. "Not saying he wouldn't, just that you'd have to get him drunk and probably roofie him before you'd be able to get him into one."

Jimmy and Abby looked at each other, shrugged, and onto the next idea they went.

It was Palmer, who had leapt with surprising ease into the role of Abby's... man of honor? best man? whatever, the guy who holds the flowers during the vows, who said, "How about Steampunk? With like, a Western flare?"

They stopped and thought about that. Gibbs: black stove pipe trousers, black claw hammer jacket, white shirt, navy brocade vest, string tie, boots, Stetson... That worked. That really worked.

"There's a new Sheriff in town, and his name is L.J. Gibbs. I can see that," Tim said nodding.

"I'm thinking east coast dandy for me," Jimmy said. He stared at Tim for a long moment. "You too, probably. And Ducky, oh my God, he'll be all over this in a heartbeat. Heck, he might even break out his kilt for it."

They realized Abby hadn't said anything. "What do you think Abby?" Jimmy asked.

She turned the computer toward them. On it was a black and silver brocade dress, skin tight bodice with a low square cut neck, full skirts flared over a bustle, all of it embellished with ruffles and black piping. A froth of lace spilled out at the wrists.

"What would you think of this in white?"

Tim's jaw went slack. He stared at it, then stared at Abby. It took a second, but he was finally able to say, "It's perfect."

* * *

"A what wedding?" Tony asks Tim three days later.

"Steampunk."

"What the hell is steampunk?"

Tim almost says, "You'll like it." But really, Tony probably won't. At best, he'll humor him. "Sort of like the 1880s Old West, but with steam powered things instead of the internal combustion engines we ended up with."

"So, you're doing your wedding based on one of the worst movies ever?"

"Huh?"

"Wild, Wild West? Will Smith? Kevin Klein?"

"No idea what you're talking about. I ran into it the first time with Deadlands."

"What's Deadlands?"

"RPG that was popular for about seventeen minutes during the nineties," Tim says absently while googling Wild Wild West. He check out some of the stills and says, "Actually, yes, this looks right."

"Worst movie of '99."

"How bad could something with Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh be?"

"You'd be amazed." Tony looks over at Gibbs who has been following this conversation without saying anything. "You going to go along with this?"

Gibbs shrugs. "I like Westerns. And it's certainly better than… What was that thing Abby and Palmer were going on about last week?"

"Renfaire?" Tim asks.

"Yeah." Gibbs shakes his head and says one more word on that subject, "Tights."

"No tights for this. Vests, cravats, hats maybe. No tights."

Tony looks at the pictures on Tim's phone. Yeah, it's not his usual style, by like, ten miles, but he can pull that sort of outfit off, and look excellent doing it.

"Steampunk. Hmmm… Well, you've certainly had worse ideas."

"Thanks Tony, that ringing endorsement was all I was waiting for."

* * *

A/N: Abby's inspiration dress: romanticthreads dot com/ neromaango dot html


	80. Laundry

Some things get more complicated when you live with someone. Grocery shopping, that gets tougher. Less expensive on a per person basis, but more complicated because suddenly you've got two sets of taste buds and nutritional/diet needs to deal with.

Laundry, on the other hand, got a lot easier.

Well, sort of.

For Tim it got a bit more complicated. Having lived on his own for quite a while he had a pretty streamlined system for dealing with laundry. Namely, his washer and dryer were in the bathroom, behind his shower, so every night he'd strip off, dump the clothing into the washer, brush his teeth, put his pjs on, and head to bed.

When it got full, he'd add soap, turn it on, and fall asleep to the swishing sound.

Next morning, toss it in the dryer before hopping in the shower.

And that night, he'd toss in sheets and towels, and iron while watching TV or talking to his mom or sister on the phone.

Add in the occasional dry cleaning run for his jackets and suits when he wore one, and that was his laundry system.

Abby has a significantly more complicated system. For example, in addition to a dry cleaning pile, she has three hampers (whites, colors, delicates) and several different soaps. And she actually uses the temperature settings on her washer. (According to Tim, his washer had one setting, and that setting was "on.")

So it wasn't long into the two of them living together that a new system of laundry labor division came into being.

Yes, he could learn how to handle her laundry. No it wouldn't have taken much effort. However, it was a lot easier to just play to their individual strengths. Namely, he memorized which bits of his clothing went into which hampers (not too hard, he doesn't own any delicates and hardly any whites), she handles the actual washing, sorting, and putting away, and he irons.

He's very good at it. Since he wears something that requires ironing every day he's at work, he gets a lot more practice at it than she does. So adding her skirts and the occasional blouse to his ironing pile isn't a challenge. And since his non-ironed clothing fits into one of four categories (socks, boxers, pants, t-shirt), sorting it out isn't much additional work for her.

Sure, he did this every six or so days when he was on his own, and they do it closer to every four now, but it still works out to a bit less work.

And he's got mad skills when it comes to ironing pleats now.

So, it was two weeks later, while he was ironing, and she was putting the dry cleaning away that she noticed the Marilyn dress and remembered something. "I never did get to hear what happened Halloween night 2006, after you got home from work."

He looks up from shirt he's ironing. "Huh?"

She turns so he can see the white dress in the plastic bag, and he realizes where her mind must have gone.

"I still can't believe you did that on purpose."

"You spent four days telling me about how hot and blonde your Ice Queen was."

"So you decided to out hot and blonde her?"

"Yep." She grins at him. "The original plan was just to wear it to the party and make every guy there fall in love with me. Getting to wear it to work in front of you was just icing on the cake."

He snorts a little and shakes his head, pressing the cuff on his shirt.

"Don't snort at me, you loved that."

"Yeah, I did, but talk about frustrated!"

"That was the point. I hope it was a lot like hearing about how hot and blonde and did I mention fifteen years younger and cheerleader your date was. You going to tell me you weren't doing that on purpose?" She sits on the bed and starts to fold t-shirts.

"Maybe a little. You're cute when you're jealous."

"And sometimes sexy."

"Very sexy. And with as many Valentine's Days as I walked down there and found fifty million flowers all from guys who weren't me, or as many boyfriends I heard about, and the number of times you wandered around in a tiny little skirt, hugged me, kissed my cheek, pressed up nice and close, and then pulled back to head off and go sleep with someone else, I am not at all bothered by making you jealous when I had a chance."

"Well, it worked."

"Good." He flashes her a satisfied smile.

"They really were mostly friends."

He's not looking very convinced by that. "I've got female friends. You wanna guess how often I send them Valentine's Day flowers let alone sleep over at their homes?"

"You always got me a Valentine's Day present."

"You think we were friends?"

"Not exactly."

He nods.

"A lot of them really were friends."

"Sure." He's not buying that at all. If they were friends, they were the same sort of friend he was. "Guys don't send flowers to women they don't want to sleep with."

"Straight guys don't send flowers to women they don't want to sleep with."

Okay, that's probably a distinction worth paying attention to. So he shrugs a little. "True."

"And a lot of my guy friends are gay."

"Okay."

"Did it really bother you?" She asks, finishing folding up all of his t-shirts, putting them in his drawer.

"Yeah!" He goes and hangs up the shirt he was ironing, and grabs a new one.

She shrugs a little. "I'm not exactly sorry, because I kind of really like how it feels that things like that bothered you, but... it wasn't kind either, and I am sorry for that."

He flashes her a perplexed look. "Um… thanks… I think."

"It just feels really good. All those years, you wanted me."

"Yeah, I did. Of course, I did." He thinks about it for a moment. "And yeah, it always felt good when you were jealous of one of my girlfriends. 'Course would have felt better if you had just dragged me back into your office and made out with me."

"Okay, the teasing thing might not have been kind, but knowing what you wanted, and knowing what I could give, and still sleeping with you, no matter how cute you were, and how often you looked at me like I was ice cream and you wanted to eat me one lick at a time, and no matter how good you are at that, and how fantastic it would have felt, would have been just downright cruel."

He thinks about that and nods. "Yeah, it would have been. As much fun as it might have been," because he can think of at least half a dozen times where they very easily could have tumbled into bed over the years, and a few dozen more where he was giving her that ice cream look, and would have very happily eaten her one lick at a time, "I couldn't have stood to be your friend-with-benefits."

"I knew that." She sits on the bed and starts matching up socks. "So, Halloween 2006. We got to do what I was thinking about that night. What did you do when you got home?"

"You want to do this now?"

"You want to watch Dr. Who and come back to this later?" They often watch TV while handling the laundry.

He checks the clock. And the pile of things to be ironed. And if they want to get to bed in time to actually get some solid sleep in… "Dr. Who will still be there tomorrow."

She grins at him.

"If I burn myself, it's your fault."

"Come on, I know you're a better multi-tasker than that."

"Never tried talking dirty and ironing before."

She laughs. "You know, about ten years ago I got a birthday card, and it was a picture of this really hot, mostly-naked guy ironing. The outside said, 'You know what's wrong with this picture?'"

Tim raises an eyebrow.

"The inside said, 'Nothing.'" And she smiles at him brightly.

"So you're saying sex and domestic chores together is something of a turn on?"

She laughs. "It's certainly not a turn off."

Chuckling a little, looking wryly amused, he pulls off his shirt, tossing it in the colors hamper, along with his socks, slowly pulls his belt from his pants, carefully draping it over the crossbar on the ironing board, and then, holding her gaze, popped the button on his jeans. Then he gave her a long, steady, gonna-make-you-come-so-hard-the-neighbors-complain -about-the-noise look, and said, "You like this, right?"

She grins. "Yeah, I really do." She got up from the bed, stepped around the ironing board, and gave him a long kiss. "Yes."

"Ironing might become my favorite chore."

She stepped back, traced her finger from his lip, down his throat and chest, settling it just above the zipper on his jeans. Her thumb pressed into the fabric just to the left of the zipper, gently stroking him, as she pulled it up to meet her index finger and tug the zipper down.

"Perfect," she said, eyes tracing over him. "Love you like this." Then she turned, walked back to the bed, and returned to sorting the socks.

He laughed a little, took a deep breath, grabbed the iron, turned it back on, (it turns off if you don't move it for a few minutes) and waited for it to heat up.

"So, Halloween 2006. Do you remember the last thing you did that I saw?"

She thinks about it for a moment. "Trick or Treating at your desk?"

"Yeah. Remember what you did?"

She grins.

"I'll take that as a yes. So, I get home, and all I can see is the way you got the treat from me. Everyone else you asked nicely and waited for them to give it to her. But me, noooo… You step right next to me, lean over me, and reach across my body to the drawer I keep my snacks in, rummage around it, for, what was that, ten minutes? Before raiding my cookie stash. You weren't wearing a bra, and with the way you were leaning, your breasts were hanging soft and loose right in front of my eyes, and your nipples weren't exactly hard, but that dress is pretty much translucent, so I could see the shadow of them against the white fabric, and then your ass is about a foot away, and once again, translucent dress, so I can see the white outline of your panties, and you're leaning over me, which meant I could smell you as well as see you, and your legs in those shoes… Look, I love the boots you usually wear, but they call them fuck me heels for a reason. You have no idea how much control it took not to grab you right there and fuck you on my desk in front of everyone. And honestly, I don't think any of the guys would have blamed me if I had done it."

She stares at him in disbelief. "I'm getting trick-or-treats for the five-year-old-girl standing two feet away and you were thinking that?"

"Baby, by the time you were reaching into that drawer, your body was three inches away from my lap. The bullpen could have been on fire, and I wouldn't have noticed, let alone a little girl a few feet away. No, the main thing I was doing was praying to every and any deity or greater power that you'd pull back without brushing against me, otherwise you would have felt exactly how hard I was."

"How hard were you?"

"Could have pole vaulted with it."

"Impressive."

"So were you in that outfit, leaning across me."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. So I get home and the one thing I know isn't going to happen is me falling asleep nice and easy. I was way, way too keyed up and horny for that. Between you and the case, no way in hell I'll just go to bed and snooze.

"And I also know that I don't want to just rub one out fast. I want this to take a while, way too many good images in my head for a quick jerk off."

She smiles at that, stands up, puts the socks away, and then returns to the bed and the pile of undies.

If asked, Tim would admit this is his favorite part of watching her sort and fold laundry. Her fingers slipping over little cotton bikini cut panties, let alone wisps of silk and lace, and yeah, he enjoys that. And she's playing it up. Very carefully tucking her panties into tidy little squares, laying those squares on each matching bra. Teddies smoothed out and folded into quarters.

"Tim?"

"Huh?"

"Do you like that shirt?"

"Damn it." He jerks the iron back. Okay, good, shirt isn't burned. It's just really well pressed in one spot. "So much for my multi-tasking skills."

"Well, how about you get back to distracting me from what I'm doing?"

"I like watching what you're doing."

"And something equally hot to listen to to go with it would be nice."

He grins and shifts the shirt a little. "So, I'm home. And at that point I didn't know exactly where I wanted the fantasy to go, so instead of picking out anything in specific, beside the lube, I just put my toybox on the bed next to me, figuring I'd grab stuff as I went.

"I got naked, settled back on bed, and started touching myself."

"How?"

He shoots her his _I can't believe you just asked that _look. "I was rubbing my knee. How do you think?"

"Left hand, right hand, both, start off with the lube, add it later?" She holds her fingers in a loose circle and jerks it a few times. "Like that?"

"Why would I use my right hand?"

"I don't know. Not everyone uses their dominant hand for everything."

"Left hand, no lube, yet, as for how…" He spends a minute thinking about how to describe that. Then he looks in the closet. He's got a shirt for tomorrow. "Would you rather just see it?"

"Really?" She's grinning brilliantly.

He nods. "Yeah."

"Oh yeah!" She scoops up the folded undies and rushes to her drawer, putting them away fast. He turns off the iron, and then takes the top sheet on the bed, and flaps it, sending unfolded laundry flying to the floor.

"Eager?"

"Not interested in waiting to get this done."

She's kneeling on the bed, and he's standing next to the opposite side of it.

He's never actually given her a show before. Sure she's seen him stroke himself on occasion, if he's going down on her, rubbing himself, hand wet from her, really adds to it. But he's never done it like this. Not for her to get off on watching.

He traces his fingers lightly over his hip, just above the waistband of his jeans, then slipped it under his boxers, and pulled gently, really enjoying the way her eyes were glued to what he was doing.

"Feel like getting me some supplies?"

"What do you want?"

"Are we still doing Halloween 2006?"

"Yeah."

"Lube, cock ring, and put some red lipstick on."

"Red lipstick? I thought I was watching."

He grins. "This might be interactive."

She smiles at him, and heads to her dresser. She opens the top drawer and searches through her lipsticks for the right one. A minute later she has it, and is smoothing it over her lips. He's watching her face in the mirror as she finishes and kisses her lips together.

"You know, every time you wear that, every single guy in the room is thinking about your lips wrapped around his dick."

"Every guy?"

Tim nods. "Every straight guy. They should call that color Blow Job Red, because that's exactly what we all think when you wear it."

She laughs.

"I'm not kidding, at all."

"I know you aren't. There's only one reason a woman wears red lipstick, and it's to make people look at her lips. It's still funny," she said as she opened the lid to their toybox. It lives on his dresser, and at a casual glance just looks like a nice, wooden box, maybe the sort of thing you might keep ties, belts, or handkerchiefs in, if you happened to have a whole lot of them. "Leather or silicon?"

"Silicon, no bullet." They have three cock rings but the one he wants is the plainest of the bunch. Just a snug ring of silicon, no frills on that one. Beyond keeping him really hard, he doesn't need it to do anything else.

"Anything else?"

He thinks about that for a moment. Sheets are clean, and it'd be nice if they stayed that way a little longer. "Towel?"

She grins and returns from the bathroom a moment later, lays the things he's requested on the bed in front of him, and settles into a comfortable position, leaning, back against the foot of the bed, waiting for him.

"Want me to get naked?"

She's got on one of his button downs and a pair of panties.

"Not yet."

"Sooo…"

"So, it's Halloween 2006, and you've been teasing me mercilessly all night. And I'm finally home and can do this." He shucks off his pants and boxers, leaving them on the floor next to the bed, and sits at the head of the bed, pillows piled behind his back, legs spread wide in front of him, cock half hard, hands on his thighs.

His thumbs are making wide circles along the inside of his thighs. And no, this isn't precisely what he did when he got home that night, he's trying to make this interesting for her as well, and just jumping on the bed and beating off might be a little more direct than she'd like.

She arches an eyebrow at him. "You did that?"

Or maybe she knows him pretty well by now. His hand snaked up his thigh and wrapped around his dick, gently pulling.

"That I believe. What were you thinking about."

"Your lips. So red, and so pretty, and so wrapped around me."

She licks them. Pink tongue slipping over them, soft and wet.

"That, too. And there was a really vivid image of your lip print on my dick. Perfect red ring just below the head."

"Like this?" And she leaned forward, pushing his hand down, carefully wrapping her mouth around him, leaving a red lip print just below the head, then pulling them softly up and over, finishing with a few licks to the tip.

He didn't realize he held his breath while she did it until it slipped back out when she sat back on her feet.

"Yeah, just like that." He begins to stroke again, looking at the perfect ring of Blow Job Red, seeing it smear a little on the down stroke.

Tim almost never thinks about what his dick looks like. Not to say he doesn't love to watch himself fuck Abby, or her sucking him, or, hell, watch anything she might want to do with his dick. If she's playing with it, he wants to see her do it. Watching is always a very good thing. But when that happens he's watching her on him. Him by himself, not particularly interesting to him, at least visually.

But she's watching his hand, his cock, like this is the sexiest thing she's ever seen, and suddenly he's watching himself as well.

He's seen more than enough porn to know his dick's not setting any records. But he also knows, that like the fact that he's a bit taller and broader than average, he's also a bit longer and wider than average. And by average he means in the mathematical sense, and by a bit he means that if anyone were to ever call him Python as a nickname, it'd be because of his coding skills and not what lives in his pants.

It's straight, no curve in any direction, and the tip tends more towards pink than purple, flushing red the closer he gets to coming.

He slips his hand down, fairly slow, mostly moving the skin of his dick over the shaft, which is usually how this works before lube is part of the equation.

"You like watching this?"

Abby licks her lips again, leans forward, her arms together, pushing her breasts up and forward, and undoes the top three buttons of the shirt, enticing him with a glimpse of cleavage.

"Oh yes, I like watching this. All sorts of good squirminess from watching this."

"Good." He settled back a little further and closed his eyes, focusing on the fantasy, because if he doesn't, he'll get too wrapped up in her in front of him, and just beat off to that. "In the fantasy it's your real hair. You're on your knees in front of me, and I'm back against the desk in your office, holding onto the edge with one hand, the other stroking your hair and face as you pull back and just lick. Lots of wet visible tongue and your red, red lips slowly slipping up and down the tip, just a little suction."

He's holding himself with his left hand, and gently tracing the tip of his right index finger over the tip. He felt her move, and then her breath against his glans, and finally her tongue slipping against him licking his dick and his finger.

"Oh." He bites his lip and takes a deep breath. "This is going to go a lot faster than it did in real life if you keep helping me."

"I want to help. You look too good not to taste."

"Okay. In the fantasy, you teased me for a while, soft and wet and just focusing on the tip. Keeping me really hard and squirming, but not letting me get close to coming. Getting me really wet, and then blowing me dry. Or squeezing firm, pushing all the blood into the tip, and then bobbing your lips over it really fast, and pulling back and stopping, just letting me rest on the tip of your tongue, and very gently scraping your teeth over the tip."

She followed the things he was saying, while he kept up a slow steady stroke over the shaft.

He opens his eyes to watch, and of course her hair is black, and it's not curly, but her lips are still red, and it feels brilliant. "Fuck, that's so good, baby."

She pulls back and smiles at him. "What next?"

"Lube."

She hands him the bottle, and he pours a little in his palm, smoothing it over his whole penis. He sighs as he does that. Dry is good, slick is better.

"And this would be the part where I stopped teasing you?"

"Yeah. Mouth and hand and all the way up and all the way down and—" He's stroking steadily, a faster pace, hand tighter.

"Slow down, let me see what you're doing."

He exhales long and slow, and narrates the action. "Moderately tight fist. Keeping my fingers snug enough so I can feel each one as I slip through. I roll my thumb over the tip as it passes through."

"That is so hot."

"Good." He speeds the pace of his hand, hips rocking into the stroke. "As you suck, you hand gets wet and slick." His right hand, the one he poured the lube into, gets into the action, rolling his balls a little, pulling them gently, and then slipping behind them, pressing against his perineum. "So you switch to just mouth and use your hand on the rest of me." He shifts position so he's half kneeling, butt resting against his feet, knees wide apart.

"I'm watching you suck me. Holding me deep in your mouth, hot, wet suction," he grabs the cock ring and slips it over himself, sighing a little as he gets it set.

"How does it feel?"

"Huh?"

"I know it makes it more difficult to get off, and I know it keeps you hard, but how does it feel when you're wearing it?"

"Really full, really big. The closer you are to coming the bigger and harder it gets, so it feels like being on edge. The skin can't move over the shaft, so you get more sensation out of the friction. Balls can't creep up, so you can enjoy it longer."

"Okay. Why put it on now?"

"Because in the fantasy your fingers are about to get into the action, and I want this part to last a while."

"And what are my fingers doing?"

"Slipping around, pressing into my perineum, and one of them is very gently easing into me." His left hand goes back to a long, slow stroke, all the way up and down, as his right slips further back between his legs, starting to slip in. He lets out a slow breath and speeds his hand a little, distracting himself, better lube means this a lot more comfortable than it used to be, but it's still not his favorite thing.

He feels her move again and hears the sound of rustling clothing. He opens his eyes and sees her stripping out of her clothing, facing him, matching the speed of his hands to her own fingers moving over her flesh.

She looks at him and smiles. "Way too hot, can't not touch myself."

He closes his eyes again, hearing the sound of her fingers slipping against her flesh. "This is not helping me relax, at all."

"Poor baby." He feels her fingers on his lips, smells her on them, tastes them, and fuck it, this isn't masturbation any more. He opens his eyes, sucks her fingers into his mouth, and pushes her onto her back.

"Tim!" She's a bit surprised by that.

"Screw the fantasy!" he said a second before dipping into a long, hot kiss, and grinding himself against her stomach.

They kept at that, writhing against each other for a good minute before he pulled back. "Up, on your hands and knees." His hands stroked over her shoulders and back, cupping her ass, as he kissed down her spine. "Just like that. Most perfect ass, ever."

He knelt behind her, thrusting in hard and fast. "Oh God! Fuck! Abby!"

The good thing about the cock ring is that it does provide a certain level of artificially enforced control. Yes, he can climax wearing the ring, but it's a lot more difficult than usual. But feeling like you're on edge, even if you aren't, means that he's got a lot less control of the rest of his body. Primary, his fine motor control is shot.

He's kissing her shoulders and neck, hands stroking her breasts. "Touch yourself, baby. Want to feel you get off."

She does, he can feel her fingers brush his balls when he trusts forward, and her body growing even tighter on him, and it feels so amazing, hot, wet, tight, and slick, on over-sensitized skin, and his body wants to come, and the ring drags that sensation out. She's rippling on him, twitching and moaning and that's even better, a whole level of better, and he forces himself to stop, let her ride it out, relax for a minute.

He pulls out, going to take the ring off, and slip back in and come so hard he sees stars.

She turns to face him. "Stop."

"Stop? What are you thinking?"

"It takes a lot of extra stimulation for you to get off wearing that, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm feeling awfully relaxed right now. Kneel down, butt on your feet."

His eyes went wide, fairly sure where this is going. "Really?"

"Yeah. Hold it together long enough for me to get settled, and then you can go full out."

"Really?"

"Yes, really. We've done this often enough you know you aren't going to hurt me."

He swallowed hard, and sat back, determined to stay very, very still. She got the lube, added more of it to him, and a lot more to her, and then back to his chest, very slowly eased down.

His hands curled into fists, and his feet into whatever the equivalent of a fist is. So hot, so tight, and so, so, so slow. He's focusing on her back, tracing the tattoos with his eyes, making himself not move, not thrust, not bury himself again and again into her. And since she didn't stretch ahead of time this takes three quarters of forever and it's the longest, slowest, tightest, hottest, best-feeling forever of his life.

He knows he's talking, hot, dirty, sexy words, probably cursing, too, feels too good not to let it out, but he's got no idea what he's saying. The feeling of it, the flex of her back as she eases down, the curve of her hips and ass, but mostly the way it feels, is keeping his mind busy.

She settled against him, just still for a good long minute, breathing quietly. Then she leaned forward, arms stretched out in front of her, head resting on the right one, ass high, and said, "Fuck me."

It was like an explosion in his brain. Any part of him that wasn't entirely devoted to thrusting and pleasure just vanished at those words. The whole world shrunk down to the feeling of her body tight and slick and sliding along his.

And when his orgasm started, he felt it whole body, through his arms and legs and chest and heart, pouring, pulsing through balls and cock and if fucking fantastic means anything, it means this feeling rushing through him.

They're on their sides, him still deep in her, when he comes back to himself. He snuggles in closer, sighing happily, kissing her neck, enjoying her next to him.

They drift like that for a little while, just enjoying the endorphins and breathing together. Finally Abby said, "Can you reach the towel?"

He feels around a little and hands it to her. She slips off of him, and he hisses a little at that. Cock ring on means he's very sensitive post-climax. He takes it off carefully, trying to not touch himself too much.

Eventually they're both cleaned up and in bed, both sleepy. He's wrapped around her, and it's probably the endorphins, but maybe it's just her, and her being near, but he loves her so much right now. It feels too big to hold onto, too big to keep in just one body, one heart.

He usually sleeps spooned behind her, with his arm around her waist, hand curled loosely around her breast, but he slides it over a little, feeling her heartbeat, and the soft rise and fall of her chest under his hand.

And he feels how precious this life is, how fragile, and how much he wants, needs, cherishes it. And there aren't words, nothing existing solely of breath of man is big enough for this, deep enough for it, so he doesn't try to speak it.

He kisses her neck, and her shoulder, pressing his face to her back, smelling her skin and hair, and holds her tightly, trying to get the feeling across with touch, not sure if that's even possible, but it's-

"I love you, too, Tim."

He kisses her one more time, wishing he was a great artist, so he could make something as beautiful as this is, and give it to her.


	81. December 2013

"What's on your schedule for tonight?" Tony asked him as they were heading toward the elevator at the end of work on a Tuesday a few weeks before Christmas.

"Quick dinner, pre-marital counseling."

"Yuck."

Tim shrugs. Tony knows that it's not his favorite pastime. He'd much rather be spending those hours doing, well, almost anything else. "It's not terrible. It's just... I don't know, designed for people who haven't been together for more than a decade? Last week was about setting goals and plans for the future, and sure, I bet that's useful if you're twenty-two and don't really have a life, but we've pretty much got the next thirty years figured out."

Tony nods. "You mean questions about what your career goals are aren't terribly enlightening?"

"Yeah, what's the big surprise going to be? I'll keep investigating until Gibbs retires or we have kids and then move to Cybercrime? Oh my. Everyone knows that."

Tony stares at him and switches off the elevator. "I didn't know that."

That brings Tim up short. "How did you not know that?"

"We can start with you didn't actually say anything about it to me."

Tim nods. "Oh. I thought—"

"My psychic vibes would somehow suck that information straight out of your head, and you didn't have to actually tell me? You're my partner. You tell me things like this!"

Tim sighs. "I'm sorry I didn't say it. After the freezer… Abby was really pissed about the almost dying thing. When I was talking to Gibbs about it, he said you and Ziva both knew I'd be going eventually."

"Well, yeah, eventually. A long, long time from now. Not—"

"Not the sort of thing that has an actual end date attached to it?"

"Yeah."

"Well, no set date yet. But, I won't be staying any longer than he does, and depending on how things with kids go, maybe sooner. I'm not going to leave her a widow with a baby. Not if there's anything I can do to avoid it, and there is something, so I'll do it."

"Oh."

"Yeah. She spent over two hours sitting in a van, not knowing if we were alive or dead, waiting, and then watched them carry us out. None of us moving, all of us blue, and she didn't know if they ran you to the ambulance because you were in the worst shape, or if you were the only one still alive. And for right now, she still thinks what I do is worth that, but that won't be true forever. So, I don't know when it'll be time, but the answer is sooner rather than later."

Tony nods at that, too. Tim can see there's sorrow in his eyes, but he makes a joke anyway, "You're going to leave me with two Probies to break in at once?"

"Yes, that's my plan. Make sure you've got two of them so each one takes half of the crap. I figure that's the easiest way to make sure that your next Probie doesn't kill you."

"Like Dornaget would even try."

"Uh huh. How'd you like that audit?"

"That was him?"

"Yeah, Tony, that was him. Don't mess with Dornie. He might look like a creampuff, but he's got some edges in there."

Tony smirks. "And you'd know all about creampuffs hiding razor blades."

"Just possibly." And with that Tim flicked the elevator back on.

"So, you got career goals out of the way. What's this week?" Tony asks.

"Today and next week are conflict resolution, which should be amusing." He rolls his eyes a little. "I'm getting to know Father John better, that's sort of nice."

Tony nods a little at that, too.

"How about you?" Tim asks.

"Schul."

Tony had started taking instruction for converting to Judaism a few weeks ago. "How's it going?"

"I hate Hebrew. These lips were not designed to make those sounds."

"You'll get it," Tim says as the elevator opens and they head toward their cars.

"Sure, sooner or later. I can memorize bits and pieces pretty well. But it doesn't help that Ziva can learn a new language in like, nine minutes, and I'm stumbling around with basic grammar and utterly destroying the pronunciation of anything I've got to actually think about."

"At least she's not getting revenge on you for all those years of corrected idioms."

"Yet. One of these days we're going to Israel, and I've got the feeling I'll be doing whatever the Hebrew equivalent of Porcuswine is."

Tim grins. "Karma's a bitch."

"Yeah, thanks. Anyway, Friday night, before sunset, her place. Shabbos dinner."

Tim looks a little surprised at that but says, "Okay. Want us to bring anything?"

"Nah, we got it."

"We'll be there." And with that they headed to their own cars, and from there, home.

* * *

They're sitting in Father John's office. It's a pleasant book filled space. Probably has good light during the day, but they only manage to make it at night, so Tim's never seen it in sunlight.

They're on a little sofa; it's not terribly comfortable, and Tim isn't sure if that's on purpose or not. Like, is it just a bit too hard because it increases the stress level of the people sitting on it, just a little, so that the sessions can work a little deeper on breaking through the I'm-so-in-love-can't-think-straight sort of headspace a lot of the other couples who sit on it are probably in? Or is it just not a terribly comfortable sofa?

There's a coffee table in front of them. Tim has a cup of coffee. Abby and John have tea.

John's sitting in what appears to be a very comfortable arm chair, talking a little with both of them about the last week. But he finally gets around to conflict resolution.

"So, tell me about how you handled the last time you both wanted to do something with each other, but neither of you wanted to do the same thing?"

They both look at each other for a minute, digging through the memory banks.

Finally Abby says, "It's silly."

And Tim knows what she's thinking, and yeah, it is. "Just, for background, it had been an awful week. Things like this don't usually set us off."

"Four days of this terrible case. Kidnappings are always the hardest. And this one—" Abby's shaking her head remembering it.

Tim fills in details. "Father died protecting his daughter, she got taken, her best friend got killed, turns out the mom and her boyfriend were behind it, it was just a bad, bad four days."

"And any case with hurt little girls is worse, because Gibbs goes bonkers, and there is absolutely no downtime. Kidnapped little girls means you work until you collapse, and then he pokes you until you get up, and you work some more," Abby adds.

"So, end of day four, we've got it wrapped, bad guys are in jail, and we get to go home."

"And after a case like that, we both need down time."

"Yeah. Case like that, you're mentally and physically exhausted. All we want to do is just get home and veg. Put as much space between us and the job as possible. So, dinner, flop on the sofa, and then there's TV. Easy, mindless entertainment."

Abby's nodding, agreeing with that. "We like a lot of the same shows so it's not usually a problem."

Tim says, "I hadn't seen the latest Burn Notice, yet. And we've also got the last Game of Throne on the DVR."

Abby picks up the story. "And well, anyway, about five minutes of arguing over which one we were going to see took place."

"I like Game of Thrones, but it's not cool down watching for me."

"And I'd already seen the last Burn Notice, and a story I've already seen isn't going to pull me away the way I need."

"And after about five minutes, where I'm getting sharp and sarcastic—"

"Making some really snide comments about how watching evil people get horrifically murdered isn't relaxing—"

"And she's getting manic and whiny."

"I was not being whiny!"

He raises one eyebrow at her, and she shakes her head a little as if to say, _Fine, I was little whiny_. He continues on, "I realized something. I have a computer. She's got a computer. So I pulled a quarter out of my pocket, flipped it, she called it, and then she watched Game of Thrones on the TV. I headed into my office and watched Burn Notice on my computer. Ta da, conflict resolution."

Abby smiles at John. "See, silly. If we'd been a little less fried, or a little more willing to get off the sofa, the arguing portion would have lasted about thirty seconds and gone something like this: 'I want to see Game of Thrones.' 'Okay. I'll go watch Burn Notice in my office.' 'Good.'"

"And how did the rest of the night go? Were either of you hurt or bothered by that?"

Tim looks at Abby and she smiles. Then she says, "His show is shorter than mine, so he came in laid his head in my lap, and sat with me for the last twenty minutes of mine, not paying attention—"

"Not really awake."

"Just hanging out. Then we had sex and went to bed."

Tim strokes her neck. "No hurt feelings. We're generally pretty good at this sort of thing."

"It's not like we just met. We've got how to deal with each other down pretty well."

"And that's pretty much how you deal with each other? Together when you like, apart when that works better?" John asks.

"Yes," Abby says.

"We're both pretty good with alone space."

"And we're also pretty good at being alone together, same physical space, maybe sharing a word or two here and there, but doing our own thing. We got that from years of working right next to each other on separate but related projects."

Tim smiles. "Yeah when we're home, I can write, she can read, we both listen to our own music, and maybe pet each other on occasion. But she understands that sometimes I really do need to be alone. And I get that she needs that, too. "

Father John just looks at them. They've been at this four weeks, and he's feeling like he's wasting their time. Most of the skills he traditionally helps couples with, they've got. "So, is there anything you would like to work on. What can we do that's actually useful for you two?"

Tim and Abby stare at each other. Intimacy isn't an issue. They're really good at sex. They're on the same page when it comes to kids. Sure she's a believer and he's not, but it doesn't seem to bother her, and if she's angsting over his soul, she's never mentioned it. They've got similar politics. Money's not an issue. Abby may act like a puppy, but she's got the same cat-like need for alone time that he has.

Tim finally says, "My job. Maybe. Figuring out when it's time to go."

Abby's staring at him. "I thought we were good on that."

He smiles a little. "We are. Just thinking more about the timing of it. When you're pregnant? When the baby's born? Now?"

"Not now."

He shakes his head. "Not now. I mentioned leaving to Tony today. Hadn't realized I hadn't actually said it to him."

"Bad?" Abby asks.

"He shrugged it off, but yeah, I could see he wasn't happy about it." He turns to Father John. "Want a relationship you can help with? Let me bring Tony in. Abby and I, we're good. Me and Tony… Not quite so good."

"Was he unhappy about you leaving, or not telling him?" John asks.

"Both, but different flavors of not happy. I tend not to talk to guys about…" he pauses to think about how to explain the wall he's got with Tony in specific and other guys in general.

Abby cuts in, "Everything."

"No, not everything. I talk to Tony about lots of things."

"Yeah, but you talk more about his half of whatever it is."

"His half is easier. His half doesn't get me teased mercilessly."

"He's a lot better about that these days."

"Yeah, he is. Which is why we talk more these days, too. But, anyway, all of the guys I interact with regularly are part of a pecking order."

"Except Jimmy."

"Except Jimmy, who is someone I talk to about my half of this sort of stuff. But the other guys are somewhere on the pecking order, and since I'm usually at the bottom of that order, I keep myself to myself. And especially with Tony, not giving him any ammo is a habit. So, I tend not to tell him things, which bothers him because that's left over from like five years ago, and neither of us are the same guys we were then. But, anyway, he tends to find things out last, and that hurts him." Tim pauses, drinks some more of his coffee. "So, to get back to your question, he's annoyed I didn't tell him, and sad that our team really is going to break apart at some point."

"How about you, does the end of the team make you sad?"

"Sure. I love who we are and what we do." Tim looks at Abby, and she smiles and squeezes his knee. "But I'm getting something I love better out of this. We're building a new team, and this is part of making sure I'm there to put that first."

"What about Abby's work? When you've moved over to Cybercrime, are you going to be annoyed that she's still on the front line and working ninety hour weeks?"

Tim shrugs. "I don't think so. I won't know for sure until it happens."

"Norfolk's lab is shutting down January 2015. I won't be working ninety hour weeks at that point. Or at least, not usually. And it's not like he'll be moving off the front lines, just fighting on a different front. Cybercrime doesn't get a whole lot of attention, but they do important stuff down there."

Tim smiles a little. "And by a different front, she means way in the back."

"No. Just a whole different war."

"That's a good way to look at it. Whole different skill set, too. If Vance is serious, I'll be the guy in charge down there, and that'll be new."

"Are you looking forward to that?" John asks.

"Actually, yes. I've been the low guy on the totem pole for a decade now. It'd be nice to be the guy in charge. Of course, as soon as that happens, Tony'll start calling me Probie again."

"In front of your team."

Tim smiles dryly. "Exactly."

John looks to Abby, "We know Tim's willing to rearrange his life for your family, what about you? If Norfolk wasn't shutting down, what would happen?"

She thinks about that. And Tim does, too. That's something they haven't talked about.

"I don't know. It would depend on what Leon's willing to do. I'm not interested in being an absentee mom. My own parents were amazing, and I want to do as good a job at this as they did.

"I can't see leaving NCIS. But if I had to, I would. I get headhunted every year. Labs all over want me, so if Leon's not willing to get me help, if he can't figure out how to make sure I'm home on a fairly regular basis, then I will find somewhere else that is.

"But I don't think that'll be an issue. Leon's a single dad. He runs the whole agency and still manages to get home most nights to see his kids. I think, even if we weren't consolidating with Norfolk, that he'd find a way to work with me."

"So, who will be taking care of the kids? You're rearranging things, but you still have a lot of time both of you won't be home."

"Nanny?" Tim asks Abby.

She nods. "I can see taking a while off, maybe even six months or so, but I'm fairly sure all baby all the time would drive me insane."

"I'm not categorically opposed to stay-at-home-dadding. But my guess is that I need to be doing something bigger than that, as well. Just novels and little people won't fill the need to shut the bad guys down."

"And you do need that?" John wants to know.

"I think so. We'll find out for sure when the team breaks up. Either I'm in it for the people and the justice or just the people. It certainly isn't for the money. If it's just for the people, then maybe I will move onto being a stay-at-home-dad, because I can't think of people who will matter more to me. But I think I need the justice, too."

John glances at the clock. It's five 'til eight, which is their usual end point. He smiles at them and asks, "So, what that a bit more useful than conflict resolution?"

Tim nods. "A bit."

Abby adds, "So next week is the last session?"

"Yep."

"We'll see you then," she finishes as they head out.

They're in the car when she says, "Stay at home dad?"

He shrugs. "It's not impossible. Does that bother you?"

"No. Just never thought about it."

"Until ten minutes ago I hadn't either. But someone has to be with them all the time when they're little. I can work from home, so it could be me."

She's nodding. "It could be. Does it bug you that it won't be me?"

"No. Not like it's a surprise. At no point have I ever imagined you being a full time stay at home mom."

"Me either."

"My guess is we'll have the first one, and you'll take some time off, and so will I, and we'll see how it goes. We'll hire a nanny, and see how that goes. And if we don't like it, we'll figure it out. We've got options and we've got money, so it really is just a matter of what seems to work best."

She smiles. "Yeah, it is."

"Leave NCIS?"

She sighs. "Probably not. I really hope not, at least. I'm sure Leon will work with me on it. But if he doesn't or can't… I'm not going to be your dad, Tim. We have kids, and I will be there for them. Like you said, if you do this with someone, that someone, and those children, should be the most important thing in your life. And you/they are/will be."

"I'd kiss you right now if I wasn't merging into another lane of traffic."

She smiles. "I know."


	82. Shabbos

December 2013 started a new Team Gibbs family tradition: Shabbos at Ziva's.

* * *

"Once I had a home filled with the sound of laughing children." Ziva remembers her father saying that, or something close to it. Once…

She's the last of the Davids now.

And she has not done this, not in a home filled with ease and love, since she was a child. Since her Safta lit the candles, and her father laid his hands on each of them blessed them before the meal, and she and Tavi and Ari were young enough to laugh and play between prayers.

And it is true, there are no laughing children in this home, not yet. Though there is ease and love here. And soon, 'round about Valentine's Day, Molly Palmer will join the festivities. And if a little McGee is more than two years off, she'd be stunned. In the years to come, there will be children here.

She looks at Tony as she blesses the bread, breaking the loaf, and prays that one day there'll be a small DiNozzo to pass these traditions onto. A little boy or girl to make Challah with, to teach the prayers, and to bless.

Ducky asks her about each prayer, and what they mean.

And Gibbs smiles at her as she answers.

McGee and Abby watch. Abby seeming to appreciate the faith of this, and Tim getting into the celebration, asking about the day of rest bit, intrigued by the idea of a faith that celebrates its holiest day by praying, visiting with friend and family, studying, and naps.

Tony makes a joke about naps and sex being part of the celebration, and that gets a smile out of everyone.

Jimmy's all in favor of the singing part, though the rest of the crew seems wary. And sure, he's bad at Hebrew, but he and Ziva produce a decent sounding two part harmony. After a few verses, Ducky joins in, and if there's anything that sounds odder than Scottish accented Hebrew, Ziva's never heard it, but she certainly appreciates the effort. Breena adds her voice after that, a soft soprano to go with Ziva's alto, and yes, it's not the Sabbath of her childhood, but it's awfully sweet, and it's a good first step into a new life that remembers and honors the old, but moves forward into the future without fear.

* * *

As they were driving home, Tim said to Abby, "I really liked that."

"Yeah, it was fun."

Tim came away from Sabbath dinner thinking that the Jews really knew how to celebrate their faith. Dinner, really good dinner, at home, with all of your best friends and family followed by a day of napping, studying, and sex struck him as a really civilized way to tell God thanks for being alive.

Or at least, he certainly preferred it to Mass. Maybe it was because the rituals were new and different. Maybe it was because it was at home, and done with family and friends as opposed to a collection of near strangers. Maybe because the specter of his father was in no way attached to this. Maybe it was because he never quite hooked into any church the way he was supposed to. Or it could have been the wine and really good food.

Whatever it was, he was hoping that Tony and Ziva hosted Shabbos again.

And if he attends Mass because it's important to Abby, he'll go to Sabbath at Ziva's because he likes it.

He thinks about that as Abby drives. "Is that what Mass is like for you?"

Her eyes dart away from traffic to look at him for a second. "What do you mean?"

"That was…" He's having a hard time coming up with a good word. "Like being home. The way home is supposed to be. Warm and welcoming and just, really comforting and satisfying."

"Yeah, it is."

"Huh." He intellectually knew that she felt different about Mass than he did, but until today he didn't really have a good understanding of how it made her feel.

She's smiling, and if she wasn't watching oncoming traffic, he's sure that smile would be aimed at him.

* * *

A/N: Safta is Hebrew for Grandma.


	83. The Difference A Year Makes

It's amazing the difference a year makes.

Some things have stayed the same. Andes mint chip cookies and jambalaya, check. Though this year they decided to make something together, something to start their own traditions with.

And while it's true that McGee loves sugar, he's been doing a very good job of staying away from it, so they decided something to munch on that's vaguely good for them might be a plan. He'd gotten down to 190 and was thinking 185 to 180 was probably where he wanted to be. So, one plate of cookies was enough, time for something healthy to go with it.

So this year, next to the plate of cookies and the casserole dish of jambalaya was a bowl of roasted root veggies with curry spices. It was tasty, took almost no skill to make, and meant that for once Gibbs didn't make every single vegetable dish. (Not to disparage Gibbs' cooking skills, but while the man is handy with a fire and a steak, or an oven and turkey, he has a tendency to cook veggies well done.)

And like last year the house was bursting at the seams with happy people. Even more this year than last, Vance and his kids, and Gibbs' "friend" Susan have joined the party. As Tim learned, if you referred to Susan as anything other than a "friend" you get the Gibbs stare of death, and depending on what other than friend you referred to her as, a headslap, too.

She's the sort of "friend" who makes Gibbs smile. (When he thinks no one is looking.)

And once again, DiNozzo Sr. has decked the place out with every sprig of mistletoe in the greater DC area.

This year, as Tim leaned against the door jam between the foyer and living room, and Abby walked by, and his hand snaked out to grab hers, the kiss was slow and warm and open. He enjoyed not having to pretend it's just friendly.

And this year, he wasn't the only one to steal a kiss (or five) under the mistletoe. Tony and Ziva certainly took advantage of the license offered by the dangling evergreen. And so did Gibbs. When Susan was standing next to the mantle, talking with LJ and Jackson about something, under a sprig of mistletoe, he handed her a cup of eggnog and leaned in and kissed her full on the lips, soft and sweet. Much to the joy of both his father and father's best friend.

And, of course, this year Fornell is glaring at Tim, again, but, and this was nowhere on the list of things he'd ever thought could piss the man off, it's because he and Abby are engaged.

Well, sort of, it's not the engagement so much as Emily reacting to Tim and Abby.

Tim was sitting on the sofa, Abby between his legs, leaning against his chest, (It's not so much about being physically affectionate, because that was a bit more snuggly than they usually are with outsiders present, as it was the lack of seats and by sharing a space they both get to sit, without hogging too much of the sofa.) talking wedding plans with Emily, Kayla, and Amira. And between the ring, and the idea of a costume wedding, all three of them were staring at him like he's pretty awesome.

He noticed a somewhat similar look of wary fear on Vance's face, too, though he isn't outright glaring at Tim. And if Mike Franks was still around, he'd probably be offering a similar look on Amira's behalf.

See, the thing about being the father of a young teenage girl, is that, when said young teenage girls are at a party hanging out with an engaged woman and her fiancée talking about weddings, is that it gives teenage girls _ideas_.

The sorts of ideas that their fathers really wish they weren't having.

And it only gets worse when Jimmy and Breena head over, and start talking weddings and babies. And if there's anyone in this house doting over his significant other more than Tim was doting on Abby, it's Jimmy with Breena.

So, it's not anything specific to Tim or Palmer. Tony'd be getting that same _why the hell would you do this to me_ glare from Fornell if Ziva was pregnant or talking wedding plans.

But she wasn't. And Abby and Breena were.

And Emily was a pretty hardcore steampunk fan, so she's really, really into the whole wedding planning idea and hanging on Abby's every word, and they were sketching out a costume for Fornell, talking about him as an aeronaut, with Breena sitting right nearby adding extra help with the detailing. Finally as they were getting his hat and gloves designed, Fornell decided it was time to put a stop to this, because glaring at McGee, who just kept grinning at him, was not having the desired effect, so he headed over and said, "I'm sure Abby and McGee—"

Which is as far as he got in that sentence before Abby looked up at him, grinning and said, "Would be completely thrilled to have someone so into steampunk at our wedding. You're on the invite list anyway, so bringing along Emily isn't a problem."

Fornell looked really puzzled. Gibbs mentioned something about it being a family only wedding, so he did not in any way expect to be attending this thing.

"I'm on the invite list?"

"Sure, Tobias. You and Emily, and maybe that boyfriend of hers—" Emily blushed scarlet and shoved Abby gently. "—who apparently I'm not supposed to mention. And any date you might want to bring, too. You'll come, right? You're not going to leave Gibbs all on his own, are you?"

And faced with Abby and Emily, both beaming at him with intense come to the wedding vibes, Fornell found himself nodding.

Twenty minutes later, he pulled Gibbs to the side and said, "What the hell is steampunk, and why do I have to get dressed up for it?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Some sort of old west-fantasy thing. And you have to get dressed up because I have to get dressed up, and we're both doing it because girls we love want us to."

"I should have shot that little punk last year."

Gibbs just looked at Fornell. _That's my son-in-law _comes through loud and clear.

"Fine. This better not be stupid."

The looked morphed to _Of course it'll be stupid, but we'll do it anyway because we love them_.

Fornell shook his head.

Gibbs looked over, Breena and Jimmy, Abby and Tim, Amira, Kayla, and Emily all sitting on the sofa or coffee table, talking. "They're talking babies now."

"Oh God. I'm telling you Jethro, this is going to kill me."

"I hear it only gets worse from here," Gibbs said with a smile.

"Thank you so very much."

"Go glare at Palmer, might make you feel better."

"I suppose I could use this as an object lesson on how it's supposed to be done: school, job, married, then kids."

"Might work for that. They're good men, Tobias. Probably not a bad idea to have her see how good men treat women they love, let alone what a functional marriage looks like."

Good points. She doesn't get to see that his home, or, since the reason he's got her two Christmasses in a row is the impending divorce of Diane and Sterling, her mom's house, either. "I know. It was just easier when she was into Raspberry Rumtart, My Little Ponies, and kittens."

Gibbs smiled a little, and Fornell realized how much his friend would have liked to have gotten to the boyfriends and fashion part of this. Tobias squeezed Gibbs shoulder quickly, and said, "They've already got a costume sketched out for me for this thing."

"At least it's Steampunk. The first idea Abby and Palmer—"

Fornell looked away from Emily to stare at Gibbs in horror. "Abby and Palmer?"

"He's her... man of honor."

Fornell sighed. Even with a pregnant wife on his lap, the look on his face was sincerely questioning Jimmy's heterosexuality.

Gibbs nodded. His look answered with a sort of wistfulness for when men knew how to act like men. It's not that he doesn't think Jimmy's straight (or cares one way or the other). After Lee, everyone at NCIS knows that about Jimmy, it's just… Somehow Jimmy got to be thirty-six without anyone ever mentioning to him that there were certain things men don't do, and being the maid of honor is one of those things. But Jimmy didn't get that memo, and he and Abby are having a blast with wedding planning, so it's Gibbs' job not to roll his eyes too much.

"Their first idea was renfaire."

"What's that?" Fornell asked.

"The sort of thing we'd have to wear tights for."

Fornell shuddered.

* * *

They stayed late to help Gibbs tidy up. Well, that was the official reason anyway. Both Abby and Tim were curious to get to know Susan better, and sticking around after the rest of the crowd left gave them a shot to do so.

They're in the kitchen. Gibbs loading his dishwasher. Tim's got drying duty. Susan's washing up, and Abby, who really knows her way around Gibbs kitchen, is putting the dried pots and pans away.

Tim's not really talking, just watching. Gibbs at home with a girlfriend is worth watching. Gibbs gets finished with the dishwasher, closes it up, takes two steps to the left, and gently strokes the back of his fingers down Susan's neck, and smiles at her.

She smiles back, handing Tim another pot, turning her face into a waiting kiss.

As Tim rubs the towel over the sauce pot, he realizes one more change between this year and the last. Last year, this wouldn't have happened. Well, maybe in front of Abby, this could have happened, but not in front of him.

Last year, he was somewhere in that liminal stage between friend/family/underling. And both he and Gibbs felt those walls, knew where they were, and made sure they stayed in place.

This year, watching the almost goofy smile on Gibbs's face as Susan teases him a little, he knows those walls are gone. He's home, with his wife, and the dad he's always wanted, at ease, and happy.

He hugs Susan as they head out, which felt pretty natural. And he hugged Gibbs too, who looked a little surprised at it, but seemed to get what he meant by it, giving him a little squeeze before they headed into the cold to go to their own home.

And tomorrow there'll be work, and Gibbs'll be the boss and they'll catch bad guys, and those walls will be back, because when they're working they're useful. But this space outside of NCIS is real now, and forever, and it feels awfully good.


	84. A Conversation Among Men

"Have you figured it out, yet?" Palmer asked Tony as he sat down with his lunch.

Tony looked at Jimmy and then at Tim. "Okay, you two have to quit starting the conversation without me and then expecting me to know what you're talking about."

"Hey, I don't know what he's talking about, either," Tim said, biting into a cucumber stick. The five of them were grabbing a quick, guys only, lunch. They do that about once a month, and found they liked it.

Gibbs showed up a second later. "Valentine's day. What are you getting Ziva? Right, Palmer?"

"Exactly." Jimmy shot Tony the _He knew what was going on, and he wasn't even here for the first question_ look.

"It's just flat out creepy when you do that, Boss," Tony said.

"What is 'creepy', Anthony?" Ducky added as he sat down with his lunch.

"The way he just shows up and immediately knows what is going on."

Tim thought about that for a moment, and then something clicks. Gibbs knows sign language. "You read lips!"

Gibbs smiled a little. "Ya think, McGee?"

"Yeah, I do."

Tony shook his head. "Details, McGee. You've been at this more than ten years now, and you're still missing things. He came up behind Palmer."

"Window behind you, Tony, the way the sun's hitting it is making it reflective."

Gibbs smiled, wider this time, looking deeply satisfied, while Tony turned around to check.

"So, have you figured it out?" Tim asked Tony.

"No. Did I mention I hate Valentine's Day?"

"By my count, seventy-four million times since Christmas," Jimmy replied.

"Well, it keeps getting closer, and I still don't know what to get her. Christmas was hard enough, and now I've got come up with something romantic and meaningful, and I've got to do it in the shadow of this dork who went and designed his own tattoo for his first Valentine's Day with Abby."

"Ziva doesn't like tattoos," Tim added.

"No but Abby does, and I'll have to design my own custom throwing knives… Oh."

"And DiNozzo's out of the dog house," Gibbs said. "What're you doing Palmer?"

"Hopefully walking around with a new baby instead of a very crabby, insanely pregnant wife. If Molly's still not out, I have no idea what I'm going to do because by that point she'll be begging me for Pitocin, and nothing short of that is going to make her happy. What did you do when Shannon was insanely pregnant?"

Gibbs shrugged. "Wasn't Valentine's Day when she was at term."

"Thank you, that was remarkably useful. How about you, Tim?"

He winked. "Quite night in."

Jimmy just stared at him. "Sex. You're giving her sex? You give her sex all the time." Then he seemed to notice the other three are there. "Which we will talk about later."

Tim nodded, and then saw the other three are staring at him, looking curious. "Not just sex. And we can leave it at that. Gibbs, what are you doing?"

"Working."

"It's ten days away, how can you possibly know that?" Tony asked.

Gibbs just stared at him.

Tony thought about it some more. "Are you 'working' or is this like your own personal Halloween?"

Gibbs just smiled. Then he said, "Duck?"

"Vivian and I have tickets to Roman-style Luprical festival at the Smithsonian."

Tim actually knew about that one and said, "Really? Leather whips, running through the crowds naked, orgies, ripping apart goats with your bare hands to eat the raw flesh while drunk?"

"Well, you certainly wouldn't want to do that sober, now would you? However, Timothy, you are thinking of a Bacchanal, and that will only happen if things go especially well." And with that Ducky grinned, and then went into a dissertation on the Festival of Luprical, how it was the forerunner of the modern Valentine's Day, and that yes, there were whips, but they were made of flowers, and the idea was to lightly tap the ladies with them as a blessing of fertility.

"And will you be properly togaed for this?" Palmer asked.

"Of course, Mr. Palmer, one does not attend Luprical in a suit."

* * *

"Quite night in?" Palmer asks as they head back toward work, the others well ahead.

"Pitocin?" Tim counters with.

"Fine. Mix tape. I recorded some covers of her favorite songs."

Tim scrunches his eyebrows together. "What are you, seventeen?"

"No, I don't mean I went on Amazon and bought some of her favorite songs, I mean I recorded them, myself."

"Oh, that's right, you sing."

"Yeah, and I'm damn good at it, too."

"That's kind of cool."

"Thanks. So, what does quiet night in translate into."

"Japanese calligraphy brush, dark chocolate, and a poem I've been working on for three weeks now."

"You're going to write it on her?"

"That's the idea. Tell it to her. Lick it off her. It'll be good."

Palmer nods, approving.

"So, how is Breena doing?"

"She hurts all over, has to pee every ten minutes, is so swollen you can leave dents in her calves if you press, and can't sleep. She's miserable."

"Dents?"

"Give me your arm."

Tim did and Jimmy pulled up his sleeve. Then he poked his finger into Tim's arm. "See the dent."

"Yeah."

He pulled his finger away and Tim's arm smoothed out. "When I pull my finger away from her leg, the dent stays, for like five minutes."

Tim winced while pulling down his sleeve. "Maybe it is time to write that script."

"I'm so tempted. Believe me, but her doc says this is normal, and if she does go past the 15th they'll induce."

"Think she'd like some extra company? We're not busy tonight."

"I'll ask when I get home. Sometimes she's going stir crazy and wants to see people. Sometimes she just wants to rest."

"Let us know."

"I will. Time to get back to the paperwork," Jimmy says as he hits the down elevator button.

"Yep," Tim agrees, hitting the up one.


	85. Molly Palmer

Tim got in a little early on Valentine's Day. Just enough so that he was the first one in the Bullpen, which was getting to be a fairly common occurrence this month.

Apparently, due to spending time with Susan, Gibbs had a tendency to show up, well, not late, but on time, which is a lot later than he usually is.

Tim's not sure if this is serious or not. It's only been going on for four months, but she did show for the Christmas party, so that was a good sign. And once again there is something of a spring in the bossman's step these days. And he's a bit mellower than usual. But that could just mean he's getting laid on a regular basis. Or it could be budding love.

He flicked on his computer, watching Gibbs head in, first coffee of the day in his hand, looking, yep, pretty mellow, well for Gibbs.

"DiNozzo and Ziva?"

"Not here yet."

It's 8:02, so it's not like they're really late or anything.

"Good Valentine's Day?" he asked Gibbs, who just smiled a little.

"You?"

Tim's turn to smile. "Hasn't gotten started yet."

Gibbs nodded, and with that they hear the bong of the elevator, letting them know that someone else is up.

And someone else was Tony and Ziva. They're talking about something, sounding happy, Tim didn't pay much attention as he started going through his emails. Then he noticed Gibbs stand up, head over to Ziva's desk, and look approvingly at something.

That got his attention. So he looked over. Ziva was showing Gibbs her new toy.

Tim's not a knife guy. For him they're tools. Useful tools to be sure, but tools.

But Gibbs is a knife guy, and so is Ziva, and they're both sort of petting the gleaming expanse of razor sharp steel in her hand. And even Tim can appreciate that knife is beautiful.

He looked over at Tony and smiled. Tony leaned back in his chair, looking very smug and satisfied.

Which lasted all of four seconds because that was when Gibbs' phone began to ring, and his phone ringing usually means one thing: Call out.

* * *

They geared up. Ziva slipping the knife into a sheath on her right ankle, and headed to a new crime scene.

Tyson's Corner isn't the other end of the earth or anything, but still, it'd be nice if they occasionally got something less than an hour away.

On the way Tony asked him, "Think Palmer ended up giving her a nicely wrapped IV of Pitocin?"

"I hope not. He told me that if she hasn't gone into labor by tomorrow, they'll induce."

"Good."

Then they were there, and it was time to swing into action. He got the camera, and got to work cataloguing everything.

* * *

He'd been at it for about half an hour, getting the crime scene from all angles, when the ME's van pulled up. Tim made sure that the area the gurney would go through had been thoroughly photographed, and then began to gather the evidence to clear a path.

A moment later, as Ducky and Dornie wheeled the gurney in, it occurred to him that Dornie wheeling in the gurney was awfully out of place.

Which meant Palmer wasn't here. And a wide, wide grin spread across his face.

"Where's Palmer?" Tony asked, also grinning as he noticed Ducky and Dorneget with the gurney. They all basically knew the answer, but confirmation is a good thing.

"He called me at three this morning, when Breena went into labor. When I left them, they were still at home, but planning on heading to the hospital within the hour. Which is where I will be as soon as my part in this case has been taken care of, awaiting Molly's arrival."

And if it's inappropriate to be walking around a crime scene with a huge grin, there was nothing anyone on Team Gibbs could do about it. Though they did all manage to rein it in when dealing with the witnesses and next-of-kin.

Even Gibbs seemed a little distracted from the case. Though not so distracted that he was incapable of handing out the headslaps when Tim and Ziva (Yes, Ziva got a headslap.) kept checking their phones for updates instead of digging through potential leads.

* * *

It was a little after eight when Tim and Tony delivered Brim, the suspect, to Gibbs. As they shut the door to interrogation, Tim's phone began to buzz. He picked it up, looked at it, grinned very widely. Gibbs saw the look, and nodded. Nothing much they could do for right now. He and Ziva were on break the suspect duty, so Tim and Tony could head off.

"Back in two hours," Gibbs said to them as Tim was pulling Tony away.

"Come on, Tony."

"Molly's here?"

"Yep. Let's go."

* * *

While Tony drove, Tim flashed a text to Abby. Got one back saying she'd be on the road in a few minutes. Had to wrap up some tests.

* * *

They didn't precisely race up to the maternity ward, but they certainly weren't walking slowly, either. Ducky was sitting, looking very pleased, somewhat rumpled, no jacket, no tie, and his sleeves rolled up, and a bit tired, along with Breena's parents and one of her sisters in the waiting room.

"We got here as soon as we could. Ziva and Gibbs are still interrogating Brim, and Abby's on her way," Tim says breathlessly to Ducky.

"Calm down, Timothy, no one is going anywhere. In fact, they were all sleeping about twenty minutes ago when I came out here. So, settle down, relax, you'll get to see her soon enough."

"Breena and Molly are fine?" Tony asks.

"Splendid. Tired, but they came through just fine."

"Jimmy?" Tim asked.

"Flying colors."

"Details?" Tim asks.

"Twenty-two inches, eight pounds, seven ounces, curly brown hair, blue eyes. All fingers and toes are accounted for. And Mrs. Slater tells me she is, except for the hair, the image of Breena as a baby."

Oh, yeah, there are other people here. He and Tony make some congratulatory small talk with the Slaters. A few minutes after that, Abby joins them. And she's so excited she's bouncing around, rambling about how cool the seeing the new baby is, and he's got an arm around her, more or less anchoring her, though he kind of wants to bounce around, too.

After an hour, Jimmy came out, and he looks ecstatically happy, and completely beat. Tim didn't even know that combination was possible, but apparently it is.

They crowd around Jimmy offering hugs and congratulations, and he leads them back to their room.

Breena's nursing Molly, and while she doesn't seem to think it's odd to sit there and chat with her breast out, both Tim and Tony are looking her very intently in the eyes as they talk. And he gets why this is happening, if you want to see a brand new baby when she's awake, pretty much the only time that happens is when she's eating. So, he gets it. But he's also carefully not looking.

Abby sits next to Breena on the bed, arm around her shoulders, petting Molly, getting the story of how Molly ended up on the outside, but mostly just looking at her.

* * *

Eventually Molly finishes eating, and Breena offers her to Abby, who looks a little nervous at the idea, but takes her in her arms and just stares at her.

"She's beautiful," Abby says quietly, her index finger lightly stroking Molly's cheek, then leans down to kiss Breena, followed by getting up to kiss Jimmy, who is standing next to the bed, watching his wife and daughter, a very satisfied expression on his face.

Tim's watching Abby hold her, wondering if she's feeling the same really intense I-want-a-baby-right-now sort of thing he is.

He wraps his arms around her, chin resting on her shoulder, looking down at Molly in her arms, murky blue eyes staring up at them, and kisses her ear. "I love you," he whispers. She smiles, turns, kisses him gently, and goes back to looking at Molly.

After a minute she says, "You want to hold her?"

"Sure." He takes Molly in his arms. He hasn't held a newborn in pretty much forever. Since his sister was brand new, and his grandfather handed her to him. But his body remembers how this works, and the soft, warm weight of a person so small she fits entirely in the space from his collarbone to his stomach.

"Hi," he says as he snuggles her against his shoulder, feeling a little silly at it, but well, nothing else sprang to mind. He pats her back gently, and rests his lips on the top of her head, eyes closed. Abby kisses him again.

Tony saying something about them having to get back soon starts to filter through. And how Gibbs and Ziva would be in to visit when they got back.

He opens his eyes and turns to Tony. "You wanna hold her?"

Tony looks startled. "Ummm..."

"Yeah, it's not hard. You won't break her." Tim hands Molly over to Tony, and he gingerly takes her.

He's staring at her like he's never seen a new baby before, and it occurs to Tim that maybe he hasn't. "She's really tiny."

Tim smiles. "Yeah. Just pat her back a little."

"You know, this isn't so bad."

Tim grinned at him and saw that Tony was right, they'd have to drive like maniacs to get back in the allotted two hours. He kisses Breena and hugs Palmer, getting ready to head off. Tony hands Molly back to Breena looking, well, honestly, pretty relieved, and they started to hurry back to the Navy Yard.

Abby walks out with them, intending to go back to Breena's side as soon as they head off. She doesn't have to be back anytime soon. Major Mass Spec won't be done for at least another two hours.

"You got more trace after this batch?" Tim asks.

"Nope, that was the last of it."

"Stay here then. I can read the print outs just fine. I'll call you if I need extra help."

She nods at that.

* * *

They're in Tony's car, heading back when he says, "So much for your quiet night in."

Tim shrugs. Part of the reasoning behind quiet night in was because ending up on a case for Valentine's was a real possibility. "Good thing about quiet night in, it's not time sensitive. It'll be just as quiet and just as night in tomorrow or the next day, or whenever. So much for Ducky's Luprical."

Tony nods at that. "You're coming back here after?"

"Assuming Abby's still here, yeah."

Tony shakes his head a little. "You should have seen the way you were watching Abby hold Molly. You're going to get her pregnant as soon as you possibly can, aren't you?"

Tim smiles dryly. "She wants to be married before the baby shows up. And even if that wasn't true, we've got everything booked now, and I really doubt she wants to be nine months pregnant for our wedding."

"Good point. Breena did not look at all happy that last month."

"Yeah. But I'm willing to bet any time after October first is fair game."

Tony laughs.

"How about you? You didn't look like you were about to run away screaming when you were holding her."

"No. No panic at all. That was actually a little surprising, really. Last time I had a kid hug me I felt like I wanted to jump out of my skin to get away."

"Good. You not freaking out about babies will make Ziva happy."

"Yeah, it will." Tony smiles, softly, at that idea. "They say it's different when it's your kid."

"Might be. I like kids, so I wouldn't know."

"You're going to be a great dad."

"I really hope so."

"You will. You know what my dad, and your dad, and, hell, Gibbs even, never did?"

"Lots of things."

"Put the job second. I saw you holding Abby and Molly, and I get it now. I don't want you to go to Cybercrime, but I get it."

"Thanks, Tony."

* * *

It was well after one when he got back to the hospital. By that point Breena's sister, Amy, was the only member of her family still there. Abby was keeping her company in the waiting room. He headed over and sat down next to her.

"Case wrapped?" she asked as he leaned his head against her shoulder.

"Just got to fill out the paperwork."

"Major Mass Spec give you any troubles?"

"Nah, he's been being nicer to me since we got engaged."

"That's because we had a long chat and I told him you were his new Dad and he had to behave."

Tim looks a little bemused at that, and just says, "Okay. How's everyone doing?"

"Sleeping right now," Amy answered.

"Doesn't sound like a bad idea," Tim replied, ready to sack out next to Abby on the sofa.

"Not at all," Amy agreed.

His eye were staring to close when Abby said, "Wait a second, I've got something you've got to see." She fished her phone out of her purse and opened it to a photo. It's Gibbs holding Molly, grinning in a way Tim had never seen.

"He looks really happy."

"Yeah, he was." Then she flicked to the next photo, Ziva with Molly. Ziva wasn't grinning, she was staring, a look of deeply content peace on her face.

Tim smiled at that, kissed Abby, and settled down to snooze.

He was three quarters asleep when she said to him, "You know, it's nice to go to a hospital and be happy about it."

"Yeah."

* * *

It was a little after six when he woke up, in need of a restroom. Both of the girls were still asleep. He got up carefully, not wanting to wake up Abby, and went looking for one.

A few minutes later, he paused at the door to the Palmers' room and heard voices, so he knocked quietly, and then poked his head in. Normally he'd wait for an answer, but he doesn't want either of them to get up when they don't have to. "Can I come in?"

"Sure," Breena's voice. She's on the bed, sitting back between Jimmy's legs, resting against his chest, nursing Molly.

He pulls up a chair, sitting near the side of the bed, once again keeping up strict eye contact.

"How are you feeling?"

"Sore, but better than I was this time yesterday and way better than this time the day before. Tired. Really happy." She smiles at him, seeing the way he's maintaining eye contact. "It's okay if you look. She's got to eat, and I'm not going to be insulted if you watch."

His eyes flit from Breena's to Jimmy's, who also nods.

So he watches, smile spreading across his face. "Jimmy, don't take this the wrong way, but, God, that's beautiful."

"Yeah, it is," Jimmy says, kissing Breena's temple.

He watches them for a while, just enjoying the quiet and being with them for this. Abby comes in a few minutes later, and sits on his lap.

"You'd think a room in the maternity ward would have more chairs," she says, noticing that there's a fairly short sofa, and the chair she and Tim are in, and that's it.

"I think they're trying to make sure we don't get overwhelmed with visitors," Jimmy answers. "It was a little much having all of your family all show up at once."

Breena shrugs. "First grandbaby/niece, everyone wanted to be here all as soon as possible."

"The only reason you didn't get an NCIS stampede was we were on a case and Gibbs would only let us go in shifts."

"Case wrapped up?" Jimmy asks.

"Yeah. You should have seen Dornie. He got roped into the body moving part of your job. Looked like he was going to pass out."

Jimmy laughs at that. "Poor Dornie. Teach him to be a Probie."

"He sends his congratulations."

Jimmy nods.

"Is there anything we can get for you?" Abby asks after another long quiet moment of just sitting with each other.

Breena shakes her head. "Not right now. Real food might be good in a bit, though. We were talking about it before you came in, and I know neither of you are Episcopalians, but, would you be Molly's godparents?"

That took Tim by surprise, he's not sure his agnostic/atheist self is prime godfather material. But Abby was saying yes before he had the chance to even think about it.

"Are you sure they'll let us?" Tim asked.

"Yeah, they will. Not like being Catholic is all that different," Breena answered.

Then Jimmy took a quiet breath, staring at Tim and Abby, then looked down at Molly, petting her face. "And, we've got a more serious question, too. If something happens to us, will you be Molly's, and any other children we may have, guardians?"

And that one Tim didn't need to think about. "Yes. If need be, your children will always have a home with us." Abby squeezed his hand, nodding along.

Breena smiled, "Good."

Abby caught Tim's eye, and he knows what she's thinking, so he nodded. "Back in August, we got our things in order, and back then we'd decided that when we have kids, we'd like you two to be their guardians, as well," Abby said.

"We were planning on waiting to ask until we actually had some kids, but…"

"Now seems like the perfect time?" Breena finished, reaching out to squeeze Abby's hand.

"Yeah," Tim answers.

Jimmy smiled at the two of them, "If they ever need it, your children will always have a home with us."

Abby took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Wow."

Breena nodded, and Tim noticed the tears in her eyes about the same time Jimmy did.

"Hey, you all right?" Jimmy asked.

"Fine." She sniffled a little while Jimmy wiped away her tear. "Just, love you all, so much."

Abby stood up, kissed Breena, and then Jimmy, "Love you, too." Then she bent down a little to kiss the top of Molly's head. "Love you, too, little girl."

Tim sat back in the chair, huge grin on his face, awash in the amazing contentment and joy of this moment, watching Abby snuggle with Jimmy, Breena, and Molly. He catches Jimmy's eye, who is also looking deeply pleased to be here right now, and reaches out to squeeze his hand.


	86. Uncle Tim & Aunt Abby

"How are you doing?" Tim asked Jimmy his first day back at NCIS post-baby. He and Abby tried to get over to visit at least a few times between Molly getting home and now, but the last eight days had seen three hot cases in a row, so neither of them had been over to visit in more than ten days.

But today, thank any and every higher power, is a paperwork day, so come the start of lunchtime, Tim was heading down to Autopsy to see Jimmy.

For a long few seconds, Jimmy just stared at him, eyes glazed and dull, and then said, "I've pulled multiple back to back all-nighters. I worked close to twenty hours a day for more than ten days in a row when we were hunting Dearing. I had a full time job with NCIS while doing my residency. And I have never, ever been this tired. It's like she can tell when one of us is about to fall asleep and as soon as it happens she starts to cry. You know how they say do all the fun stuff you like before the baby comes, 'cause you won't get to do it for a while after?" Tim nodded, mostly just to keep Jimmy talking, because honestly, no, no one has ever said that to him. "They're lying. Sleep. Sleep every second you can before the baby comes."

"Okay. Besides exhausted?"

Jimmy stared at him, eyes empty, wasted, in the sense of left to rot, not drugged. "There is no beyond exhausted. Everything in the world narrows down to a tiny person who won't let you sleep."

"Jimmy?"

"Yeah."

"How about Abby and I come over tonight and take Molly for a few hours so you and Breena can crash."

"Thank you." That was dangerously close to a whimper.

"As soon as we're wrapped up for today, we'll come over. And bring food. I thought Breena's mom was staying with you."

"She was. Went home last week."

"Okay. Do you want to get lunch, or just grab a nap."

"I'm going to crash in the back."

"Like hell. Abby's got something worth sleeping on in her office. Come on."

He flashed a quick text to Abby, and by the time he got Jimmy to the lab, she had the rugs rolled out, and two pillows laid on them. Just as he was laying down, Tim got another text, this time from Tony.

"Damn it!"

"Gotta go?" Abby asked.

He kissed her quickly. "Yeah. So much for lunch. You got him?"

She nodded. "Oh yeah."

Forty minutes later, Abby gently poked Jimmy awake. "Time to get up."

He blinked, looking completely undone, but slowly found his glasses and put them back on. "Nap was probably a bad idea. I'm even more tired, now."

"Food'll help." She pointed to the tray on the floor next to the rugs. "Iced-tea, no sugar, sesame tuna lettuce wrap, edamame."

Jimmy looks at the food for a second, and then back to Abby. "I love you."

She smiled widely. "Thanks. Eat up, then get back to Ducky."

* * *

If Palmer looked wasted at work, Breena's whatever came three or four steps beyond that.

Abby could see the same thing, as she looked at both of them while putting the dinner they brought on the counter. "Food later. Sleep for both of you."

Tim stepped closer to Breena to take Molly, but Breena didn't want to let her go. She had black circles under her eyes and a half-mad glint in them.

"Have you ever done this before?"

Tim wasn't sure which of the two of them she's asking, but since he's the one who can say yes, he answered, "Yes. It's been a while, but yes, I've babysat a newborn before. We won't leave the property. You'll be right nearby if we need anything, but you two need to sleep."

"She just ate, so she should be good for another two and a half hours." Tim pried Molly out of Breena's arms as she said that.

"Then go crash. We've got her."

Jimmy, firmly, took Breena by the shoulders and led her upstairs toward their bedroom.

* * *

"You're really good at this," Abby said as he's holding Molly.

"Thanks. I like babies. Or, I like this part of babies. They're cute when they're quiet. Not as much fun when they're screaming."

Which apparently Molly took as a request. Twenty minutes of patting and shushing didn't seem to help.

"You wanna try?"

Abby was staring at Molly, looking really disconcerted. "Honestly, no."

"Give it a shot anyway, ours are gonna scream, too. Might as well practice."

He began to hand Molly over, and Abby said, "Wait!"

He snuggled her in closer and kept patting her. "What?" A second later he figured out what Abby was thinking as she began to unsnap her collar. Her collar and wrist cuffs all had small pyramid shaped metal spikes on them.

"Let me get them off first."

"Good plan. Don't want to explain to Breena how we had Molly for less than an hour and took one of her eyes out."

Abby glared at him.

Once she had her hardware off, he handed Molly over. Abby got her settled against her shoulder, and began to pat her while bouncing a little.

"I really don't like this."

He kissed her cheek. "No one does. You're doing fine, just keep bouncing and patting, and eventually she'll fall asleep."

After a minute of that, an impressively large belch echoed out of Molly, and in a minute after that she was fast asleep.

"See."

Abby switched from a gentle bouncing step to a sort of rocking one. "So, your mom let you watch your sister?"

"Yeah. My dad was, as usual, gone. And we were out of Alameda then, so my grandparents lived three hours away. There were a lot of nights where it was just the three of us. I was still young enough that five AM wake up wasn't an issue, so I'd watch her from five to eight, until I had to leave for school, and let my mom get some sleep."

"That's insane."

"It's the way it was. My grandparents would come down on weekends, and we'd all get more rest."

"How old was she when your dad got back?"

"Four, five months? Something like that? He shipped out right before she was born."

Abby looked at the sleeping girl on her shoulder, petting her hair lightly, and kisses her gently. "So, now what?"

He wasn't sure if she's asking him or Molly, but since Molly isn't going to answer, he said, "You could put her in her crib."

"Not sure I want to let go."

He smiled, sat on the sofa, and held out his arms to her. She snuggled up in his lap, while Molly slept on her shoulder.

* * *

Eventually Molly started crying again, and this time she kept trying to scootch down on Abby's shoulder to get to her chest. "What is this?"

"If memory serves, that's baby for 'MILK!' Even at three weeks old, they can scoot a little to try and find a breast."

"Interesting." Abby stood up and headed toward Jimmy and Breena's room.

She came down about a minute later. "You want to take another round of this?"

Tim checked the clock. It was a little after nine. "Sure."

"I'll let them know."

When Abby came back, he'd put together two plates of food. "You think they want to eat, or just put the plates in their room so they can scrounge as needed."

"I'm thinking scrounging. Jimmy hasn't moved when I've gone in. I think he's out for as long as we're here."

"Okay."

* * *

The second round followed the same pattern as the first. Half an hour of pretty intense crying, massive burp, and Molly conking out pretty quickly right after.

"I kind of remember there being something that helped them burp easier," Tim said when Molly finally fell asleep.

"Gas-X for babies?"

"Yeah something like that."

Abby got her phone out and googled. "Yeah, there is."

"Feel like going on a drug store run? Get them some of it. See if it helps."

"Sure. Back in a bit."

"We'll just hang out here."

She smiled at Tim, and kissed him and Molly before heading off.

* * *

Forty minutes later, Abby snuck back into the Palmers' house. She'd found Mylicon pretty easily, and was ready to show it off to Jimmy and Breena when she took Molly back in to eat.

"I found..." her voice trailed off as she stepped into the living room.

She snapped a few pics, and quickly updated her Facebook feed.

Tim asleep, laying on the sofa, stretched out, feet up, Molly on his chest,also asleep, his hand on her back, making sure she stayed in place was just way too good not to share.

By the time Tim saw it the next morning, the shot labeled "Uncle Tim and Molly Get A Nap" had 416 likes, 8 shares, and close to a hundred comments.


	87. The Christening

The christening was a week away when Tim finally got some time alone with Jimmy. They were having lunch, mostly just catching up, and as things were wrapping up Tim said, "So… okay… The thing about being a godfather. I don't really believe in God."

Jimmy spends a moment just staring at him, looking confused. "Don't you and Abby go to church like, every Sunday?"

"Yeah. But I do it because it's important to her. It's not important to me."

Jimmy just looks at him. "And that would be different from me, how?"

That takes Tim by surprise. "You're not into the whole God thing?"

"Agnostic. I really don't know, and evidence seems pretty thin."

"Exactly. I won't say there isn't a God, because I don't see how you could know that, either. But…"

"Yeah. So, no, it doesn't bother me."

"Will it bother Breena?"

Jimmy shakes his head. "She married me, and I'm going to be a bit more involved in raising our kids than you are, so I don't think it'll be an issue."

"Okay. Good point. Am I going to have to renounce Satan?"

"And that would be a problem why?" Jimmy asked, wryly. "Or is this where you tell me that, yeah, you attend Catholic church, but just to swipe the holy water and relics so you can pervert them for Black Mass on Saturday."

"You're onto me." Tim flashed his best evil grin. "Just, I may be iffy on God, I'm pretty sure on the no Satan thing."

"You believe in evil right?"

Tim shrugs a little, of course he believes in evil, sees it or its aftermath at work every day. Just like he believes in grace, sees that and the soldiers of it, every day, as well. But evil is one thing, while a malevolent spirit that controls all the evil in the world is another all-together. "Evil, yes. Satan, no."

"Me either, but we certainly see more than enough of it. So, I'm comfortable with the idea of promising to renounce it, and if Satan is the term they want to use, fine with me. Anthropomorphic personifications don't bother me."

That triggers a million year old memory from Catechism. "The Jesuits would call that mental reservation."

"Then we will reserve the right to be reserved."

"That's the worst pun I've heard all year."

Jimmy smiled. "Thank you. Look, for your part of this, it's about having you and Abby stand up and promise to help us raise our kids, and as long as you're on board with that, I don't care what's going on in your mind while the Pastor dribbles water on Molly."

"That I can do. So, what else is it for?"

"Keep the in-laws happy. Make my mom stop bugging me about it. Show my family and Breena's that we've picked you and Abby. Her parents aren't thrilled with that. They'd prefer we had picked one of her sisters."

Tim looks perplexed, not that he knows Breena's sisters well, but they're all pretty young and single. "None of them are married or settled."

The look on Jimmy's face makes it clear that that's exactly what he and Breena were thinking and that it's nice to have some validation on this. "Thank you. Amy's the oldest and she's four years out of school. She doesn't need a baby. Anyway, if it ever comes down to it, there'll be an entire church full of people who saw that we picked you."

"Smart."

"So, we're good on this?"

"Yeah, we are."

* * *

Spring in DC can be a tricky thing. First of all, it shows up whenever it feels like. And that can be anytime between mid-February and late April, but for 2014, it decided to show up for Molly Palmer's christening.

Second of all, it shows up fast. It might play around a little, a nice day here, a nice one there, and piles of cold, wet, rainy-snowy crud in between. But once it decides to come, it's bursts forth over the course of what seems to be two days.

So, while it was true, that Thursday, when Jimmy and Breena were finishing getting the pre-christening party stuff ready, it was cold, wet, and gray, with nary a leaf in sight, by Sunday, when the actual christening was happening, every tree was covered in tiny green leaves and white and pink flowers.

* * *

Ed Slater sober is a piece of work. If he's got a filter between his brain and his mouth, it's got a really wide mesh. Ed Slater with two beers in him, well, at that point the filter vanishes. One thing Jimmy has privately wondered for years now is how on earth the Slater Funeral Home has managed to stay in business. His best guess is that Jeannie, Breena's mom, never lets Ed anywhere near the customers.

And by the third snide remark out of Ed about "real" family, Tim can see he and Jimmy are headed for a confrontation, so he keeps his eyes open, ready to head over and help out if need be.

It was two hours into the post-christening party when it happened.

Ed more or less drug Jimmy into the garage, apparently he had enough sense to know you don't do this in front of everyone. But not enough sense to respect Jimmy and Breena's decision.

"You should pick family for something like this!"

Tim heard the louder, sharp voices and decided it was time to join in, offer back up. "Hey, everyone okay?"

Ed Slater turned to him. "No."

Jimmy shrugged and sent Tim an apologetic look. "Ed's having a fit over picking you and Abby for Molly's guardians."

"Look, I'm sure you and your Goth are perfectly nice people, really weird, but nice, but this should stay in the family."

"Tim and Abby are our family!"

"They're your friends."

"Family," Tim added.

"Really, you grew up with Jimmy? You certainly didn't grown up with Breena. I was there, and I don't remember seeing you."

"I'm here now. Abby's here now. And we aren't going anywhere."

"You say that, but you don't know it. Amy, Kristin, or Jamie will be here forever. Hell, what about your brother?" Ed said to Jimmy.

"Look around, Ed, Clark isn't here. He wasn't at our wedding. He lives in Tokyo and only makes it back stateside three days a year. Amy's twenty-seven, Kristin is twenty-five, and Jamie is twenty-three. They are barely adults. They don't have homes. They don't have their lives set up. None of them are ready to take care of kids, or for that matter, wants to."

Ed just stares at Tim, disdain on his features. "And those two are? I know what you guys make, and both of them work with you."

Well, if money was an issue, Tim had a ready answer for that. "I'm Thom Gemcity."

"What the hell does that mean?" Ed asked.

"It means he's a best-selling author, Ed, and that if money is the issue, he and Abby make a ton more than Breena and I do."

"And it shouldn't be an issue, because even if both of us were working for pennies, we've got jobs, we've got a home, and we're ready to take care of a child if need be. We'll have one of our own in a year or two."

"Great, you're ready to be parents. Doesn't mean you'll be around in ten years. My girls will."

"We will be here. Both Abby and I understand that by saying yes to this we basically married Jimmy and Breena. And, as horrifying as Abby and I might find this, that also means you're now part of our family, too. Because, if something does happen to Jimmy and Breena and we end up raising Molly, you'll be at all of our Christmas and Thanksgiving and birthday parties for the rest of our lives. And the fact that I'm willing to let a jerk like you into my home because you're my goddaughter's grandfather should speak loud and clear on how important this is to Abby and I."

Ed just blinked at him, scowled a little, and headed off.

Jimmy smiled. "We basically got married?"

"We signed up to be here for you and your kids for the rest of our lives. You got a better way to put that?"

Jimmy thought about it and shrugged. "Not really." Then he smiled. "So does this mean I can sleep with Abby?"

Tim punched him on the shoulder. "Just as soon as I get a turn with Breena."

"Get in line." Jimmy's shaking his head. "God, he's such a jerk."

"He's probably worried that if something happens to you, we'll take your kids, and they'll never see them again. That's something that won't be an issue if you had picked one of the girls."

"Maybe. It probably is the issue for Breena's mom. I think he's just a control-freak asshole who wants everything under his thumb."

"Or it could be that. He really offered you a job? Doesn't seem like he likes you enough to want to work with you every day."

"Did I mention control-freak asshole?"

Tim squints a little, obviously that makes sense to Jimmy, but not to him. "Not seeing how that fits."

"If I work for him, all of our income comes from him. He ends up owning us."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Not going near that job with a million foot poll."

"Good plan."

"Why'd you head over?"

"Saw him pull you away, heard the voices, though you might like backup."

"Thanks. Never thought I'd say this, but I envy the fact you've got Gibbs for a father-in-law."

"Wow."

"Yeah. He's a terrifying hard-ass, but at least he's a quiet one."

Tim laughed. "Come on, let's get back to the party."


	88. April

"Thank God, you're both here!" Abby said rushing to sit down next to Tim and Jimmy. They were grabbing some lunch and hadn't expected her to join them.

"What?" Tim asked, dread in his voice, Abby looked really upset.

"Tim! It's awful! The Adam's House called and they can't get the linens in crimson, ebony, and snow. They've only got scarlet, midnight, and cream. But if we do scarlet and cream that means we've got to change the flowers because they won't look right, but the florist tells me the that cream colored roses don't grow in the late fall, and if we want the roses to match, the linens have to be snow and not cream, and the black cala lilies are more of a warm black, but the midnight linens are a cool black and there's no such thing as a cool toned black lily, and even if they dye them it won't look right, because the underlying tone won't go, and I'm about to laugh so hard I'm going to wet my pants, you should see the looks on both of your faces right now!" And with that Abby did start laughing.

"Everything is fine?" Tim asked once he realized he wasn't about to have to deal with a bridezilla moment. So far there hadn't been any, but both Gibbs and Palmer seemed to think it would happen any day now, and that for all intents and purposes you aren't really married until you've talked your bride out of jumping off a cliff because some stupid screwed-up wedding detail that no man in the history of maleness has ever cared about.

She sat next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, kissing his cheek. "April first, baby."

Jimmy sighed, hard. "Don't do that! You just gave me a flashback to my wedding when Breena really did freak out because the flowers weren't going to match the napkins."

"Yeah, she told me about it, which gave me the idea. Don't worry, I know you two can't even see the difference between snow and cream or scarlet and crimson, let alone care about it. Okay, I've got to get back to the lab. Have a good lunch!"

Abby bopped away, and Jimmy looked at Tim. "I don't know if she's evil or the coolest woman ever."

"Coolest woman ever. Have I mentioned she didn't cry when I told her I couldn't care less what color anything was?"

"I was there, sitting next to you, silently begging you not to say it, waiting for her to explode about how you obviously didn't love her if you didn't care about the wedding details."

"Coolest woman ever!" Tim said with a grin as he took a bite of his burger.

* * *

Some parts of planning the Sciuto-McGee wedding were going to be a whole lot of fun.

And while it was true that there were aspects of the wedding that Tim literally could not care less about, pretty much anything involving how the place looked for example, there were some things he really did care about.

When he'd explained the idea of what they were going to do to Gibbs, he'd just stared at him in stupefaction. Apparently back when he married Diane (The last time he'd had a wedding. He and Stephanie eloped) wedding cake came in one flavor: sawdust, and the only decision was how many layers you wanted.

So, on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-April they were heading to the bakery to figure out what sort of cake they wanted.

Options, so many options, and all of them so, so good. They were sitting at a small table, with a collection of cupcakes in front of them. They'd already narrowed the twenty or so options from the menu down to four. But going from four to one was a killer.

See, the thing about a family only wedding, and not having tons of family is that you don't need a big wedding cake. Which pretty much limits you to one flavor. And picking just one out of the four in front of them… Black Forrest cake: dark chocolate cake soaked in rum and cherries with a sinfully deep vanilla frosting. Lemon-Raspberry Cake: lemon pound cake, raspberry mousse filling, raspberry gelle, and white chocolate frosting. Peanut butter cake, peanut butter mousse, chocolate ganache. And finally almond cake, chocolate ganache, cherry gelle, vanilla frosting. They sat there, happily munching away, more or less agreeing that all of them were the best thing in the history of cake and that deciding on one of them was impossible.

Finally, Sherri, the baker said to them, "You don't have to pick just one. You need enough cake to feed forty, right?"

Abby nodded.

"That's not a big enough cake to make different tiers a good idea, but we can do cupcakes. The ones in front of you are pretty plain, but we can make them fancy if you like. They cost more, because it takes more work to make and decorate a lot of little cakes, but…" And she let the idea trail off as Tim and Abby stared at the cupcakes in front of them.

Then Abby looked at him, licked a bit of white chocolate frosting off her fork, and smiled.

Tim grinned back, grinned wide. There was one sort of cake he'd been very interested in, but it didn't make the final cut because Abby doesn't like coffee. But if they were going to get a lot of flavors instead of just one, it could go on the list. Tiramisu cake: white sponge cake soaked coffee syrup, whipped mascarpone frosting, chocolate sprinkles. "Can you make the tiramisu cake as a cupcake?"

"No problem." Sherri stood up and was back a minute later, placing small, creamy café au lait colored cupcake sprinkled with cocoa and a chocolate curl propped on the frosting in front of Tim. "It's one of our better sellers."

Tim bit into it, and groaned with pleasure, it was exactly as good as he had hoped it would be. He looks at Abby, smiling, very pleased with this idea.

"How many cupcakes do you recommend for a group of forty?" Abby asked.

"We usually suggest eighty. Though, if you've got a lot of kids in your group, more might be a good idea."

"Not a lot of kids. Lot of hardcore coffee addicts, but not a lot of kids," she said, watching the expression of utter, sublime joy on Tim's face as he chewed his cupcake.

Sherri smiled. "So, would you want sixteen of each? We do a minimum order of six, but anything over that is fine. If you want, we can make them all look the same, cover them with fondant and whatever decorations you want, or we can decorate them so it's fairly obvious what they are. We can arrange them on a tray or do tiered clusters, so they'd look more like a traditional wedding cake. Pretty much whatever you can imagine, we can do."

And so, by the end of the afternoon, an order for eighty cupcakes, each decorated to show what they were on the inside, displayed on eight black pedestals, each at a different height, with white roses and chocolate covered strawberries strewn about them was placed, and Tim and Abby were one step closer to having a wedding planned and ready to go.


	89. Susan

Tony rubbed the back of his head gently as Gibbs stormed off. "That's the third time I've been headslapped today."

"I know. And I hate to say it, but you're not any more off than you ever are. What happened with you two?" Tim asked.

"Nothing. He's just in a pissy mood."

Tim wasn't buying that at all. "Pissy mood? Come on. Something is going on. You and Ziva okay?"

Tony flashes him his _really, you're going there _look. "We're fine. Why would you ask that?"

"He'd headslap you if you're pissing her off."

That made sense, sort of. "If I'm pissing her off, I've done it without her letting me know."

"That's not like her."

"No it's not. So it's him."

They both winced when Gibbs double slapped them. "More work, less gossip."

"If you weren't slapping the hell out of Tony every two minutes, we'd be working. What's going on?"

Gibbs just glared at Tim, so he flashed Tony his _talk later_ look, and both of them got back to working the crime scene.

* * *

Two days later, Tim said to Tony, "I feel like I woke up in 2004."

Tony looks up at him like a light just went on. "That's it! We fell into a time warp and somehow we're ten years back in time. How did that happen? Tell me that, Probie."

Tim glared at Tony. "Don't you start. It's not 2004, and I will kick your ass if you start that Probie crap up again."

"Fine. Still, he hasn't been this hard in years. As Senior Field Agent, I'm thinking it's time to do a little investigating."

Tim nods, this sound promising. "Good, let me know how that goes."

"You let me know." Tony smiled, looking satisfied.

Tim's eyes went wide. "Nooo… I don't want to poke into his life."

Tony flashed him his _I'm being totally reasonable here, even if you think this is insane _look. "I'm not asking you to hack him, just head over tonight and talk."

"Why do you want me to do that?" There are a lot of things Tim McGee is good at, walking up to people, even people he loves, and saying, "So, tell me why you're acting like there's a stick up your ass and you don't want it there," isn't one of them. He's much better at the whole respecting privacy and leaving them alone until they sort it out for themselves thing.

"'Cause this has gone on long enough. You're free tonight, and I've got Schul."

"Skip it."

"Can't. I missed the last two weeks because of cases. Rabbi's getting annoyed at my attendance."

"Great."

"Besides, I think he'd rather talk to you about stuff like this."

"Stuff like what?" Sure Gibbs was being a bear lately, but Tim hadn't figured out the cause, yet.

"When was the last time you saw Susan?"

"Oh." Tim realized it had been close to a month. "You think that's why he's so angry?"

"Could be. He wasn't much fun after Hollis left, and I think that was the last one he really liked."

"And he did like Susan, didn't he?" Well, if they had broken up that could explain it. It'd been more than six months, so that could mean the thing with Susan was fairly serious, and she was the first woman in ten years he could remember being invited to some of the social things for their group. So, that was another mark in the serious column.

"Yeah. Look, if he's still being a bastard after you talk to him, I'll go see him tomorrow, and pump Ducky for information, too."

Tim shook his head, sure how that was going to go. "That's not going to end well."

"I'm hoping that you'll talk to him and it'll help."

"Why do you think he'd talk to me about this?"

"You're good at this stuff."

Tim's sending Tony his _are you insane_ look. "What on earth makes you think I'm good with relationships?"

Tony's got the same look on his face, stupefied that Tim would even ask that. "You're getting married in six months."

"I'm good with Abby, which is not the same thing as being good at relationships." An idea hit as he said that. "Abby! She can go talk to him!"

"He won't talk to her, not about this sort of stuff. Broken heart stuff is man talk. Usually involving alcohol and maybe steaks."

"It sounds like you know what you're doing. How about we wait until tomorrow and you handle it?"

"Just get on it."

Tim glared at Tony a little and then flashed a text to Abby about his post-work errand.

Two minutes later he got back _Thank God, it's about time one of you did it! I'll pick up some bourbon for you to bring over._

_Wonderful. See you at lunch?_

_Sure._

* * *

Gibbs glanced up from his workbench when he heard the steps, feeling mildly surprised to see McGee standing there holding a bottle of bourbon.

"You're supposed to be DiNozzo."

McGee nodded. "I agree. But he's at Schul, so," he put the bottle on the workbench next to Gibbs, "I'm here. Look, I've never done this before. Do we just drink until you're ready to stop being a jerk?"

Gibbs looked at the bottle of Blanton's Original. It's not anything he's ever drunk. The bottle is globe shaped, looking a lot more like some sort of cordial than anything he'd think of as bourbon. McGee doesn't drink hard alcohol much and when he does, he goes for scotch, so if he picked it out that means he probably went online and looked it up. If Abby did, than that's probably her year bartending showing. He hoped Abby picked it out.

McGee sat there, waiting for him to say something. There was one difference between doing this with McGee versus DiNozzo, McGee, once he got comfortable, did quiet pretty well. DiNozzo either never really got comfortable or just couldn't handle the quiet.

Gibbs touched the bottle, turning the label toward him. "Gonna take a bigger bottle."

"You've got more if this isn't enough. What happened with Susan?"

Gibbs stared at him, looking amused. DiNozzo would have spent half an hour talking about, well, Gibbs isn't sure, he wouldn't have paid much attention to it. Just would have been noise to let the alcohol sink in a bit before getting to the main topic. "You've really never done this, have you?"

"No. The only guy who would come to me with something like this is Palmer, and he's doing just fine with his love life."

McGee pulled up a stool and opened the bottle, pouring a glass for each of them. Then he pushed one of them toward Gibbs.

"Talk to me. It won't hurt. Might help. And if we both still think this is stupid tomorrow, we'll both slap Tony."

Gibbs grinned a little at that, and took a sip. Not bad. Not sweet, but tastes like sugar and orange, or maybe it just makes him think of oranges rather than tastes like oranges. Mostly tastes like alcohol. Nothing he'd pick out for himself, but nothing he minds drinking.

"You aren't drinking."

"I'm pacing myself. I don't want to be hung over tomorrow."

Gibbs took another drink. "The idea is get drunk so you hurt as bad on the outside as you do on the inside."

McGee shot his back. "Better?"

Gibbs nodded, and he realized McGee always takes a drink from him, but rarely finishes it or has more than a few sips. "You don't like bourbon, do you?"

"No. Though this is a lot better than I thought it'd be. So, let me guess, the other part of both of us drunk is so I don't really remember what you've said?"

"Something like that."

"Won't blab. Won't tell Abby if you don't want me to."

"Abby's fine. The ten million people who read your next book aren't."

"I won't put it in there. What happened?"

Gibbs finished his, and poured himself another. "Nothing."

McGee raised his eyebrow, very clearly signaling _you've been a complete asshole for a week over nothing?_

"She's sweet, and funny, and beautiful, and sexy, and nothing happens. Nothing ever happens. I can enjoy having her around. I can feel protective about a woman. I enjoy the sex. But that's it. It never gets any deeper."

"You weren't in love with her."

The tilt of Gibbs' head says yes. "At least by now I know to cut out before she gets too attached to me. It took three tries but I figured out that sticking around longer and getting married and hoping isn't going to make me fall in love."

"Why not?"

He just stared at McGee.

McGee sent him his best _I'm not an idiot_ look. "Say it out loud, see if it helps."

And after a long quiet minute, he did. "Because she's not Shannon."

"You ever talk to anyone about Shannon?"

"Mike. A little."

"He handled her case, right?"

"Yeah."

"Talk to me. Tell me about her. How'd you two meet?"

Gibbs stared at McGee, not saying anything, not sure if he could make himself say anything. He was never a big talker, learned early with his Dad that silence was armor, a good way to protect himself, but he started talking again when Shannon came into his life, and when she died, his words went with her. Too many memories, too many feelings went with words, and keeping them bound and silent let him function.

McGee waited patiently, not in any hurry, a somewhat expectant look on his face.

Then Gibbs got up, heading upstairs. When he came down, he was holding a framed photo, and his glass was refilled.

He put the picture on the workbench in front of McGee. "Christmas 1990. Last shot of the three of us together." It was a pretty standard family portrait. Everyone was smiling at the camera, Gibbs had his arm around Shannon, and one hand rested on Kelly's shoulder.

"They were beautiful." McGee's voice was low as he said that, and Gibbs realized that part of never saying anything was never having anyone around who really understood how much he had lost. Most of his friends were bachelors, like Ducky or Mike, never settled on one woman. He watched Tim, and realizes sometime between putting the picture in front of him and now, he switched from McGee to Tim, study the picture, and could almost feel the raw shock of aching sympathy from Tim as he felt, and knew, what Gibbs lost.

"Yeah, they were." Gibbs took another long drink.

"How old are you in this picture?" Tim looked up at him.

"Almost thirty-three."

"Wow."

"Yeah. Didn't go gray until after. Didn't even notice for something like a year. Had to renew my driver's license. I listed my hair as brown. The DMV lady just stared at me for a minute before grabbing a compact and showing me myself in the mirror."

Tim smiled at that. He looked at the picture again. "She would have been about Ziva's age, right?"

"Kelly was born in '82. So, yeah, same age as Ziva."

Tim looked back up at him. "You love Abby, right? And Ziva? Really love them, not just fond and protective of them?"

Gibbs nodded.

"What's different? They aren't Kelly, can't be Kelly, won't be Kelly."

Gibbs shrugged, feeling the alcohol hit, hard. Might taste sweet but there was a real punch hiding in there. "Kelly wasn't mine. You'll realize that soon, I hope. Your kids don't belong to you. They belong to themselves, and, eventually, whoever they give themselves to."

"Shannon was yours."

And while that's true, that's also not the problem. "I was hers." Gibbs sighed and stared at his drink. "I was eighteen, home on leave, and she was at the train stop, and…" He took out his wallet and pulled out another picture. It's easier to show the pictures than to say the words. "She's twenty in that shot." Shannon, smiling, in a long, simple, white dress, standing in front of a huge scarlet maple, sunset lighting the shot golden pink; her hair was in a long, loose braid, wind blowing tendrils of it behind her, a bouquet of pink and white flowers in her hands.

"That's your wedding, isn't it?" Tim asked, fingers lightly tracing the edge of the photo.

"Yeah. October 20, 1979." Gibbs rubbed his eyes, feeling that moment. She was smiling at him. The photographer said he wanted a shot of her by herself, so he was standing a few feet away from the man as he clicked the camera. Ten seconds later he joined her, holding her hands as he snapped more pictures. The words started to come out before he could stop them, before he could feel the desire to shut them down. "She put that ring on me, and I was whole and home and all that other stupid love song crap that isn't when you really love a woman… And I know for you and Abby the ceremony is just… fun. But it mattered to us. We didn't get married an inch at a time. We jumped in all at once, and nothing has ever felt like that before or since."

"She was your first?"

Gibbs closed his eyes and swallowed, remembering that as well, thinking of a moment of sublime, ecstatic joy forever tinged with the excruciating pain of having lost that moment. "She was my only, and yeah, my first, too. We waited until we got married, and you do that, and…you say the words, make the promise, put on the rings, and then share yourself like that, feel her body on yours, your one and only and her one and only, and you are married."

He rubbed his eyes again. He was not crying, or trying not to cry, or maybe Tim was just doing a very good job of not seeing him cry. And with the tears (or lack of tears) words started to rush out. "She was mine and I was hers and none of it matters because she's not here. She's been dead almost twice as long as we were married at this point. And yeah, it gets better and it gets easier, but she's still gone, and the hole she's supposed to fill is still there, and this house is still empty when I come home, and there aren't any pictures on the mantle of the three of us growing old together, and I don't have grandkids, and I didn't get to give the bride away, or dance with my wife at our daughter's wedding." He paused, inhaled fast and deep. "We aren't getting ready to retire, and we didn't go to the places we were supposed to, and she'll never set foot on this boat, and the future we wanted to build didn't happen. And it's all so fucking wrong!" Gibbs shot his drink back, and Tim poured him more.

"And every time I try to rebuild, it comes back up again. I'm hers, and she's not here, and I don't know how to belong to someone else."

Gibbs drank some more.

Tim touched his arm. "Find the right girl, Palmer told me that. It won't work with the wrong girl and no amount of trying will make it work. I'm sure everyone and their cousin has told you Shannon wouldn't have wanted you to mourn her forever, but if you haven't found someone you can fall in love with yet, then you haven't. Maybe sex and friendship is what you can do. Maybe it's all you need."

Gibbs snorted. "Been telling myself that lie for years. It's not. I miss the way love felt. I want it. I just can't get it. I should have loved Hollis. Really should have loved Jen. Should have loved the exes. Should have loved Susan. They deserved to be loved. Just, can't do it."

Tim thought about that while Gibbs stared at his drink, then he asked, "Where's your wedding ring?"

"Upstairs."

"When did you take it off?"

Gibbs almost answered and then stopped.

"After Hernandez?" Tim asked.

He figured that it really shouldn't be a surprise that Tim knows that. He half wondered if Abby told him, but decided Tim figured it out for himself. Abby may have confirmed it, but she wouldn't have told. "Yeah."

"Go put it back on. You're still married. Leave it on until it's actually time to take it off."

Of all the things Tim could have come up with, that was something he would have never expected. "It's been twenty-three years."

"I know." Tim tapped his glass, he's only had the one shot, hasn't poured himself a second. "I haven't had so much I can't do subtraction. You aren't done being her husband, so put your ring back on. Maybe if you go back a few steps, try it again, you can get to where you need to go."

Much to Tim's surprise Gibbs got up.

"You still have hers?" he asked as Gibbs set foot on the bottom step.

"No. She was buried wearing it."

"Okay."

"Why?"

"If you had it, I would have suggested put it on, too."

Gibbs nodded, that made sense to him. It didn't take him long to find. It'd been living in his sock drawer, in a small black box with his service medals. Plain gold band, wide, still fit, and looked very right on his hand.

"Feel better?" Tim asked when he returned.

"A little." And it did, which was probably wrong, but… at this point he wasn't going to argue with it. He hated having that finger naked, and sticking other rings on it never helped, so why not put the one that belonged there back on?

"Good. So, tell me about her. In my family, when someone we loves dies, we get drunk and tell stories, and we laugh until we cry and then cry until we can laugh again. I'm going to take a wild guess and bet that you never did that for Shannon or Kelly." Gibbs nodded. Tim poured another shot into Gibbs' glass, poured more for himself as well. "Tell me some stories."

And Gibbs did.


	90. The Morning After

Tim woke up with a jolt of adrenaline, wondering where he was. It took a second before he figured out that he was on Gibbs' sofa. Took another second to check his watch, see it was 8:30 and figure out the reason his entire body was screaming get up at him was because it was a work day and he was late.

He listened for a moment, house was quiet, and no one had dropped any water on him or yelled at him to get up, so he was fairly sure Gibbs was still out. It was 5:00 when they kicked the bottle, (round about the halfway point he started spilling as he poured, partly to help sell the illusion that he'd had a lot more to drink than he actually had, partly because while drunk, talking Gibbs was the goal, taking him to the hospital with alcohol poisoning wasn't.) and he dragged Gibbs into his bed before crashing on the sofa.

He checked his cell. Three texts from Abby.

_6:32 Guessing you're still at his place_

_7:47 Telling Leon you both won't be in today_

_8:22 Let me know you're okay._

That one was ten minutes old. He sent one back, fast. _Okay. Just woke up. What's your best hangover cure?_

_How bad is it?_

_No idea. I'm not the one hung over. But Gibbs is still asleep, so I'm thinking it'll be brutal when it hits._

_4 Advil, Gatorade, hot shower, go back to sleep._

_I'll see what I can do._

_What happened?_

_We're both fine. Got enough alcohol into him to get him talking about Shannon. Mini wake. Hope it helped. Tell you more when I see you._

_Okay_

He looked at the picture of Shannon, Kelly, and Gibbs on the mantle and felt the cold, aching fear of losing everything that matters. _I love you, Abby._

_XOXOXOXO_

* * *

He headed for the kitchen, extremely doubtful as to the likelihood of there being Gatorade in there. And he was right. A little bit of food. Not much to drink besides coffee and more booze, and neither of them were good plans.

He found the largest glass Gibbs owned, filled it with water, and rummaged around for Advil or some sort of painkiller. Nothing in the kitchen. Tried the hall bathroom, nothing in there either.

He headed for Gibbs' room, very quietly. Didn't want to wake him up, and even though, at this point, Gibbs should still be drunk as opposed to hung over, still doesn't mean him waking up is a good plan.

Fortunately it didn't work that way. He crept in, put the water on the nightstand, and headed for the man's bathroom. Unfortunately he didn't have any painkillers in there.

_What kind of guy doesn't have at least one bottle of Tylenol in the house?_

_The guy who never gets sick and probably thinks hangovers are deserved punishment or something._

_Screw it._

He found a pad and a pen and left a note next to the glass.

_Out getting supplies. Back in a bit. Abby called in sick for you. Go back to sleep._

An hour later he had Gatorade, Advil, and breakfast. Two of the three he left on Gibbs' nightstand. The last he stuck in the oven on warm.

While eating his breakfast, he got a text from Tony.

_What did you do to him?_

_Got him drunk and talking. That was the plan, right?_

_You got him so drunk he called out?_

_I got him so drunk he's still asleep. Abby called him out._

He can feel Tony shaking his head as he looks at that text.

_What did you do, shoot him with a tranquilizer dart?_

_Something like that._

_Think it helped?_

_We'll find out._

Then he went back to sleep. It was a surprisingly comfy sofa, long enough for him to lie full out on, and he was out in a flash. Sure he can function on three hours sleep, but he doesn't have to, so he won't.

It was after three when he woke up to the sound of loud cursing and the shower running.

He headed upstairs, found the Advil and Gatorade untouched and the door to the bathroom open. He picked up the Gatorade and took it in.

Gibbs was on the other side of the shower curtain, groaning.

Tim put the Gatorade on the edge of the tub. "Part of why you're hurting is that you're dehydrated. Drink it."

"Coffee."

"Will suck even more water out of you. Drink the Gatorade. Drink the next one I bring you. Then I'll make us coffee."

Gibbs pulled back the curtain and grabbed the drink, glared blearily in Tim's direction, then snapped the curtain shut again.

Tim went down, got another Gatorade, and then made some coffee.

* * *

Gibbs got down an hour later, looking like he'd been run over by a truck. Tim pointed at the table where there was coffee, water, and food.

"You'll live?" Tim asked very quietly.

Gibbs nodded.

"Then I'm going to head home. Keep drinking the water with the coffee. There's a full pot in the kitchen. More food and Gatorade in the fridge. Abby says you should go back to sleep as soon as you can."

Gibbs nodded again.

* * *

Tim sent a text to Tony while he was waiting for a light to go from red to green. _Your turn. Just check in on him, and if he's awake tonight, keep him company._

_?_

_We kicked the bottle, and I only had two shots. He's feeling like crap and probably shouldn't be alone tonight._

_Got it._

* * *

When Tim got home, Abby wasn't there, yet. But it was a bit after five thirty, so with any luck she'd be home soon.

He poked around the kitchen, nothing looked ready to become dinner, so he ordered them some Chinese. He didn't really want to cook anyway.

Mostly he just wanted to curl up with her, hold her close, and devoutly give thanks to the God who's existence he greatly doubted that she's alive and whole and in his life and that he's not sitting in a house filled only with memories.

* * *

Food got there before she did. But not by much. He was just starting to shut the door when he saw her.

"Hi." Abby smiled brightly at him as she slid in the door.

"Hey." He put the bag on the floor and wrapped around her, head on her shoulder, arms around her waist.

That was significantly more clingy than their usual hello hug. She petted his arms. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just not taking you for granted. I love you."

"Love you, too."

He can feel the fact that she's got a perplexed look on her face, but he's still not moving, still holding onto her, smelling her skin, feeling her warm and in his arms.

"Tim?"

He raises his head from her shoulder and spends a moment just looking at her, eyes wide and earnest, fingers cupping her face. "He was three years younger than I am when she died." He kissed her, soft and gentle, not sexual so much as an expression of thanks, then pulled back and stared into her eyes. "And I need to hold onto you for a while. Is that okay?"

She smiled softly at him. "That's okay. I'm not going anywhere. Other than maybe the sofa, with you. Come tell me about it, and we'll snuggle."

He nodded, that sounded good.

* * *

An hour later, he was sitting with Abby on the sofa, sharing a carton of chicken and broccoli, telling her about Shannon, when his phone beeped. Text from Tony:

_McGee, the plan was get him drunk and talking, not married again. What the hell did you do?_

_He's awake?_

_Crashed out on the sofa, wearing a wedding ring!_

_You sent me to do the job, I did the job. Relax. That's Shannon's ring._

_Why would that make me relax?_

_Because it means he's doing what he needed to do when she died. At least, I hope that's how this works._

_What's the plan here? Send him back 23 years, cling to her harder, and just give up on anyone else?_

_I really hope not. He got married three times and whatever it was with Jen in less than ten years. Took the ring off right after the funerals. Never said another word about them to anyone for more than a decade. Diane found out about Shannon by going through his wallet, and I don't think he ever mentioned Kelly. He just shut it away. The plan is to actually try mourning and saying goodbye and letting her go._

_Think he can?_

_Yeah._


	91. How Much?

"How much did Abby's ring cost?" Tony asked Tim as they drove to question a suspect.

"What?" That question is so far out of bounds he doesn't even know what to start doing with it.

"Ziva knows how much you spent on the stones, so I can't get her a ring that costs less than that."

"What?" He's still stunned Tony is asking about this.

"Engagement ring for Ziva, I can't get her less of a ring than you got Abby."

"This is how you tell me you're going to ask Ziva to marry you?"

Tony shot him a _see, that's what it feels like_ look. "I thought the fact that I'd do it sooner or later was pretty obvious."

"Okay, yeah it was, still something other than, 'Hey, I intend to outspend you,' would have been nice."

"Fine. I'm going to ask Ziva to marry me, so I need a ring, and because you had the brilliant idea to take her gem shopping when you got Abby her ring, and because C. already whipped out a huge stone for her, she's got expectations now, and I can't fall short of them. So, how much was Abby's ring?"

Tim was staring at Tony like he couldn't believe this. "Your main engagement ring goal is to out romance me?"

"No." Tony thought about it. "Yes. If I don't, then this is just routine for her, something she's already seen."

Tim laughed. "First off, taking her along was Gibbs' idea. Secondly, you're screwed, $15,300."

"For a ring!?" Tony's eyes just about fell out of his head at that idea, and he pulled over and stopped the car.

Tim shrugged. "Gems came in at a little over 7,000 and the custom design work and materials on the ring was a bit over 8,000."

"You spent three months of your salary on a ring?"

Tim grinned at Tony, enjoying this way too much. "Five after taxes."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I had the cash. I wanted to get her the perfect ring. That's what the perfect ring cost."

Tony looked to the sky and said, "Why?"

"I did, however, get some intel for you."

Tony's eyes narrowed; he looked interested. "What?"

"She likes sapphires. But she wouldn't tell me what sort of proposal she wanted."

"Hmmm..."

"So, besides determining you want to get her a 'better' ring than I got Abby, do you have any ideas?"

Tony sighed. "Shooting you in the head for spending so goddamn much."

Tim snorted. "I wasn't aware I was setting a ring budget for you. And if I had known that... I would have done exactly the same thing. She loves that ring. It is absolutely perfect for her. And she is going to wear it every single day for the rest of her life. So, get over how much it cost. Abby helped Palmer pick out Breena's ring, and I didn't feel any need to compete with that."

"Because you blew it out of the water by a mile before you even got one of your stones picked out."

Tim shrugged. "Really wasn't thinking about it at all. What I was thinking about was spending months searching online looking at pre-made rings and thinking that none of them were right for Abby. But you aren't marrying Abby, you're marrying Ziva, who likes classic, elegant, beautiful things which you can just walk into a jewelry store and buy."

"There is that."

"And I highly doubt Ziva cares at all how much her ring is going to cost."

"I care."

"Why?"

Tony shrugged. "I just do. And I don't want my dad looking at it and smirking about it. Man's bought more engagement rings than Gibbs has, so he's got ideas about what they should look like."

"I can take you to where I got Abby's gems, and the guy who's making our wedding rings seems to know what he's doing. The guy who did her engagement ring took three times as long as he said he would, so unless you do want killer filigree work way late, I don't recommend him. So, besides expensive, what do you want to get her?"

Tony was facing in Tim's direction, but not really looking at him. "It should be smooth and strong. She works with her hands, fights with them, so it can't have soft, easily snagged bits on it. But it should still be beautiful and delicate."

"Were you thinking diamonds?"

"I was, but if she likes sapphires, I should probably look at them. Plus sapphires would have the advantage of not looking anything like the ring C. got her."

"Good plan."

"Yeah."

Tony thought for a moment, then he looked at Tim, curiously. "You just had fifteen thousand dollars lying around?"

Tim shrugged, watching traffic speed by. "Yeah."

"Why?"

He turned his eyes back to Tony and squinted a little, the sort of gesture that means, _I'll answer this, but don't get to deep into it, okay? _ "First off, it took me almost half a year to even get the stones. That's a good chunk of time to save. Secondly, I do have another job."

Tony was staring at him, looking a little suspicious.

"They actually pay me to write mysteries. It's not just a hobby."

"Oh. Right. Gemcity. Does that pay well?"

Tim shook his head dismissively, this is what he doesn't want to get too into. Sure, he hadn't been subtle about the cash on the first book, but after losing everything he's been a whole lot pickier about how he spends his money. Tony's probably noticed he's got a good watch and wears expensive stuff when they aren't at work, and that their apartment is awfully nice, but it's not like he's bought a new Porsche recently. "I'm not Rick Castle, but I do okay. So, you given any thought as to what to do with the ring once you've got it?" he asked, turning them into more comfortable territory.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"And, besides the fact that our year anniversary is coming up, I don't know. Hard though this might be for you to understand, McWordsmith, some of us don't have an easy time coming up with poetry and spilling out perfectly formed verse about why we love our girlfriends."

Tim smiled. "I asked if she still had the Marilyn dress, talked about the two of us going out for Halloween as Monroe and Miller, she looked at me and said, 'Weren't they married?' and I just grinned, whipped out the ring and said, 'Will you marry me?' I left the poetry for other days."

"So, wait, you write her love poems, but didn't to ask her to marry you?"

"She knows I adore her. She's got a box full of poems I've written her. So, no, I didn't feel a need for a long, drawn out, here's all the reasons you're perfect proposal. Of course, I was also holding a designed specifically for her fifteen thousand dollar ring. That might have spoken louder than words." Tony punched him on the shoulder while Tim grinned. "Guess you'll just have to keep working on getting your words right."

"You're an asshole."

"Oh come on, Tony! How often do I get to do this to you? If Palmer was here, he'd be smirking at you, too."

"He would. I should ask him what he said to Breena. At least that way I'll know where the outer lines of way too sappy are."

"That's not a bad idea. You wanna borrow Abby for ring help?"

"I might. Or maybe not. I have a feeling she'd think anything I'd like for Ziva would be boring. Breena probably has closer jewelry taste to Ziva than Abby does."

"Might be true. Still take one of the girls, they talk to each other, so she might have more information about what Ziva wants than I do. And even if she doesn't have specific information, she'll probably have a better feel for what Ziva wants."


	92. May 2014

"How was the shopping trip?" Tim called out when he heard the door shut.

He was in his office, jazz playing loud, staring at the proof version of The Traitor Within. He hated this part of it. Writing the story in the first place, lot of fun. Editing, that was pretty good, too, it was always interesting to see what another set of eyes thought was happening. Proofreading? He'd rather watch paint dry. Tim had already seen the book so many times he could barely see what was on the page, and when things did jump out at him, they were usually the sort of change that was so big he couldn't make it.

This point in the journey there were no real rewrites, it was just fine tuning, like spelling issues or turning a comma into a semi colon.

He also didn't much like this phase because he was fifty thousand words into Deep Six part five and he really didn't like stopping that dead to go back to Deep Six part four.

"A lot of fun!" Abby said as she came in. "Tony's got really good taste in jewelry."

She sat on the edge of the desk, one foot resting between his legs on the seat of his chair, turning him away from the proof and toward her.

"Glad to hear it." He bent forward and kissed her knee, resting his chin on it, looking up at her. "Good to know one of us had a fun afternoon. Ziva going to be happy?"

"I think so. Unless she was lying about loving sapphires."

"What's it look like?"

Abby took her phone out of her pocket. "He made me promise to delete this after you saw it. Doesn't want her running into it by accident or by snooping on my phone."

"He thinks she might snoop?"

"I get the sense he didn't come up with a great excuse for why the three of us were out this afternoon."

"Why were you three out?"

"I don't know. I didn't ask what our cover story was."

Tim shook his head. "Amateurs."

"Breena and I are bad liars to begin with. Everyone is better off if we don't get asked, than if we end up having to try and cover." She finished flipping through the images on her phone and showed him the ring.

He stared at it, smiling. "It's beautiful."

"Yeah."

He looked at it for another minute. Round cut white diamond, some sort of white setting metal, a ring of sapphires around the diamond, and a small, round, white diamond at either side.

"What's the setting?"

"White gold."

He nodded, then shook his head a little, wry amusement on his face. "How big is it?"

Abby held up her fingers about a quarter of an inch apart. "Why are you shaking your head?"

"One of his goals was to outspend me on an engagement ring. I think he might have."

Her eyes narrowed. "Really?"

"That's what he told me. Ziva went with me to buy the stones, so that was his absolute minimum price."

Abby rolled her eyes a little. "That's silly."

"I told him that, too."

She looked at the ring on her finger. Then thought about what Tony spent. "Do I want to know how much this cost?"

"Depends," Tim said with a smile. "Are you going to slap me upside the back of the head if I went a little bonkers on it?"

"No. But by 'a little bonkers' do you mean 'a little' or 'full blown insane?'"

He leaned back in his chair, fingers tracing down her leg. "Probably closer to 'full blown insane' than a 'little.' You like it?"

"I love it."

He grinned. "Then 'full blown insane' was exactly what I needed to do."

She smiled at him and looked at her ring again.

"Do you want to know?"

"Nah."

She shifted her gaze to his proof copy and the very few red marks on the page. "How's it going?"

"Slow." He stuck out his tongue and rolled his eyes. "Two hundred more pages to go."

"Yippiee!" Tim truly appreciated the amount of sarcasm she managed to work into that one word.

"Exactly. What's on for the rest of your day?"

"What's your deadline for that?"

"Nine on Monday."

Abby looked disappointed. "So you actually need to finish it?"

"Yeah." The whole paying for the wedding thing would be significantly easier with a pile of cash, and they weren't going to send him any more of it until the proof was marked up and sent back.

"In that case, Bioshock 3."

Yeah, it came out months ago, but their game backlog is pretty steep these days. They only got into it a week earlier and it was awesome! He stared at her for a minute, images of sitting next to her, playing it with her in his head. "You're killing me."

She smiled widely at him. "You got to play for three hours on Friday while I was trapped in the lab."

"True." And because of that she'd be mostly going through bits he'd already done, still… Bioshock!

"You going to be able to break for dinner?"

He checked the clock, four hours until they usually ate. Two hundred pages of careful reading to go. "Yeah. This goes well, we might be able to play together after dinner."

"Ohhh!"

* * *

Being on the other side of the your-buddy-is-getting-engaged thing was pretty cool. First off, it's always easier to be the sounding board than it is to be the guy coming up with the ideas in the first place. Second of all, and granted, it wasn't like Abby was going to say no, but still, when you're the buddy, there's no risk involved, and that's pretty nice. Thirdly, he is really, genuinely pleased that Tony's feeling ready to take this step, and he's happy about it.

Really happy.

Like having a hard time keeping a straight face happy.

Which might be why Ziva's a bit suspicious when he more or less wrestled the keys away from her and drove them, very slowly, back from gathering evidence on May 22, 2014.

She "knew" Tony had made reservations to take them out for their anniversary, and Tim, very carefully driving ten miles an hour below the speed limit, making them later and later for that dinner was driving her crazy.

What she didn't know, and Tim did, and why he was driving so slow, is that Tony, as soon as possible, had booked home and was getting their real dinner set up. Sure it was take out, but it was really good take out, and though Tony hadn't been too specific about his plans with Tim, he's fairly sure the whole apartment will be decked out in flowers and candles and all the rest of the traditional Hallmark card/Valentine's Day style romance that Tony seems to do so well.

So, Tim's job, as soon to be best man, is to deliver Ziva to Tony's place as slowly as possible, making sure he's had time to get everything set up.

And Tim's doing a good job of it. Even though at this point she's getting awfully close to threatening to shoot him.

"McGee, if you do not speed up I will… That's the exit! Why are you driving me past our exit? I have to get back to my car, home, and changed, and Tony's going to be there in less than half an hour."

"Relax. Check your go bag."

She's glaring at him, but digs through her bag. He looks away from traffic for a second and sees her come up with a pink envelope. She slits it with the knife Tony had made for her, unfolds the paper inside, and reads it quickly.

"It says, 'Don't kill McGee.' Why is Tony giving me a piece of paper with instructions not to kill you?"

Tim shrugged. When Tony told him that once Ziva started asking questions to let her know about the note, he had certainly expected there to be something more than "Don't kill McGee" in there as well.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Tony's."

"And why are you doing that?"

"He asked me to."

"And did he ask you to drive at this infuriatingly slow pace?"

"Actually, yes, he did."

She sighed and glared at him again. He grinned at her.

"And what is going to happen when I get there."

"I don't actually know." Sure he could hazard an extremely accurate guess, but he doesn't, as a matter of fact, know.

She's watching him carefully, and really listening to what he's said. "Then what do you think will happen?"

"Not telling. It's a surprise."

"Hmmm… And would this surprise have something to do with Abby, Tony, and Breena all vanishing together on Saturday?"

"That's entirely possible." And with that Ziva smiled, and began talking about the case.

Fifteen minutes later he dropped her off at Tony's and as she shut the door he fired off a quick text to Tony. _She's two minutes away. Hope you're ready._

A second later he got a shot of Tony's apartment, picnic dinner laid out in the center of the living room floor, candles lighting everything gold, along with _Look good?_

_Yeah, looks good. Have fun._

_No 'Good luck'?_

_You don't need it._

* * *

On Friday, May 23rd, he and Abby headed to the Bullpen, waiting for Tony and Ziva to get in. And yeah, seeing both of them glowing with happiness was a very good thing. Seeing Gibbs kiss Ziva's cheek while hugging her, and then pull Tony into the hug as well, that was even better.

* * *

A/N: As per usual, I've got pictures of the ring (and Gibbs kissing Ziva) on the blog. charactersaremyheroin dot blogspot dot com /2013 /05 /shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_17 dot html


	93. June 2014

Some things about planning the Sciuto-McGee wedding required some extra help.

Steampunk for Dummies night was one of those things.

While it's true that Palmer and Breena both get the idea of Steampunk, it's also true that the majority of the wedding party has this idea firmly filed under 'weird stuff Abby and McGee like' with no concrete ideas of what exactly that means.

With four months to go, it was time to get some wedding costumes ready, and yes, Abby's, Ziva's, and Breena's dresses had all been designed and put on order quite a while ago, not all that much had been done for the guys.

Because, while it can take a lot of dressmaking skill to turn out something properly flouncy for a steampunk wedding gown, or bridesmaid dress, for the guys things were quite a bit easier.

So, it was a quiet Saturday in the beginning of June when the entire wedding party gathered at Tim and Abby's for grilling and getting the guys costumed.

Or at least getting them set with ideas.

Tim figured that if Gibbs and Fornell watched Firefly, that the rest of the crew could handle it, and when the burgers had been handed out and everyone was comfy in the living room, he queued up Firefly, Shindig, identifying all of the characters, and wrapped up with, "If Mal or Simon would wear it, then you can, too." Then he hit play, and they watched.

He noticed that Tony seemed a whole lot more into it than he was expecting, really enjoying the duel at the end, and Ducky seemed to be taking notes on what might constitute appropriate garb.

At the end of it, he turned it off. "So, everyone have a pretty good idea of what we're going for here?"

Nods all around.

"Is a kilt appropriate?" Ducky asked.

"Kilts are always appropriate for anything hosted by Tim and I, anything," Abby answered. "What colors is your tartan?"

"Gray, tan, burgundy."

"That'll be fine," Tim answered. "Official wedding colors are black, crimson, and white, though that's a guideline more than a rule. My ceremony suit is gray, though the vest and tie is crimson. Abby's got all white for the ceremony."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You have a ceremony suit?"

"Yeah," Tim nodded. "The ceremony will be formal, at least for the two of us, we don't expect anyone else to get two suits for this, and the reception a bit more relaxed."

"How relaxed?" Gibbs asked.

"I'm going from a morning suit to something rakish. There aren't any real hard rules here, though we'd certainly appreciate something in the spirit of this. Why, what are you thinking?"

Gibbs just smiled.

"Hats?" Jimmy asked.

"I wasn't planning on one, but knock yourself out if you want to," Tim answered. "You thinking a bowler?"

"Of course!" Breena smiled at Jimmy and ruffled his hair affectionately.

"What are you thinking, Tony?" Ziva asked.

"Not a bowler. So, basically, this is pretty much like any other suit, just the vest is cut higher and the tie's a little different."

Tim nodded a bit, that sounded right. "Pretty much. Collar can be squared off or pointed. Jacket'll be longer."

Tony nodded at that.

Ducky looked back at the television. "Timothy, are there more episodes of this?"

"Yeah, thirteen of them and a movie."

"I'd be interested in watching more."

Tim smiled widely at that.


	94. Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

"What are you two doing next Saturday?" Jimmy asked Tim and Tony.

"Nothing planned."

"I'd have to ask Ziva, but I don't think we've got anything going on."

"Good. Molly's finally sleeping through the night, so Breena's parents are taking her for the night as a late anniversary present. And we were hoping you'd be interested in getting dressed up and going out clubbing with us." The six of them hadn't been out on a date night since before Molly was born, so that was sounding awfully good.

Tim smiled, clubbing with Abby is always a good thing. "We can do that."

"Even if Ziva has plans, I think she'd reschedule for that."

* * *

The plan was to meet up at Tim and Abby's place, because they lived closest to everything, and then consolidate into one car and go from there.

It's getting onto seven, and everyone should be there soon. Tim's ready to go, dressed, made up, and looking forward to tonight. Abby's finishing up her hair, she's pulling it back into the two little buns, one on each side of her head, and doing something sort of Lolita Goth, in a little lacy black dress with petticoats and high boots.

He thinks it's ridiculously cute and way too hot.

The bell rings and he heads for the door.

"Hey. Tony... Oh." Tony is in a suit. A really nice charcoal gray suit. With a dress shirt, silk tie, and dress shoes. Ziva's in something emerald green, silky and slinky.

Just then Palmer and Breena showed up. Palmer's in a suit, too. Granted Tony in gray looks like James Bond and Palmer in brown looks like the professor in charge of the Library Science department at a particularly esteemed liberal arts college. Meanwhile Breena's in a halter dress that shows off a lot of naked back.

Tim looks at himself in a kilt, boots, and T-shirt and sighs. "Next time, I think we've got to define what dressed up and clubbing means. Come in. We'll get changed. Palmer, it's your anniversary, where are we going?"

"Somewhere you can wear the kilt, but you'll need a jacket and tie to go with it."

"Okay."

"Is there somewhere in DC that you are dressed for?" Jimmy asks.

Abby comes out. "Three places." She looks at the other two couples, sighs and heads back to their bedroom. "Give me about ten minutes."

Breena's staring at Tim. "Is that black nail polish?"

He looks at his hands. "Yeah."

She squints up at him. "Eyeliner?"

He nods.

"Cool. When you get dressed up, you get dressed up. Next time, you pick the place."

"Will do. Grab yourself something to drink; we'll be ready soon."

He quickly washed off the eye makeup and brushed through his hair to tame it back down again, but left on the nail polish. About five minutes after that saw him in a maroon button down, black suit jacket, black tie, and kilt.

"Really, you think him in makeup is cool?" Tony is asking Breena as he heads out of the bedroom.

She shrugs. "Boys in eyeliner is hot in general, and for Tim in specific, yeah, it looks good. Kind of dangerous."

Tony's staring at her like she's speaking in tongues. "You have met McGee, right?"

"Tony, I'm right here."

Tony looks over at him. "Yeah, but you're not exactly the poster boy for sex, drugs, or rock and roll."

"He certainly looked like him five minutes ago," Breena says.

Tim smiles. "I love sex, didn't like the drugs I tried, and rock and roll is great, but I like jazz better."

"What do you know about drugs?" Tony asks.

"I went to college, too, you know."

"Yes, but you spent the whole time studying."

Tim smiles, a little wicked glint in his eyes. "Not the whole time."

Abby comes out, makeup toned down, hair loose around her shoulders, wearing a pretty, and, for her, conservative pink dress and says, "All ready?"

"Yeah," Jimmy answers, ready to get onto the dancing part of the night.

* * *

"You really did illegal drugs in college?" Tony asks Tim as they drive into town. Jimmy's at the wheel, because he knows where they're going, and he and Breena are the only ones with a car that seats six. Say what you like about Minivans, but if you want to go somewhere with a bunch of your friends, they're convenient.

"You didn't?" Jimmy asks.

"No! Basketball team. Random piss tests. Everyone else around me was playing with coke, but I stuck to alcohol. So, really, you did drugs?"

Tim rolls his eyes a little, surprised that this would get to Tony. "I did a lot of things in college."

"But, illegal, really?"

"Tony, how many felonies do you think I commit a year? In a good year, it's five or six. I've got most of the guys we put away beat by a long margin. And we're not just talking about civil liberties infractions here, I mean, I'm guilty of cyber-attacks on the US government, which is considered terrorism, attacks on foreign governments, which is espionage, and honestly, since I've had orders for some of it from Vance or Jarvis, possibly causus belli should it ever get traced back to us."

That stops Tony, makes him think. Tim knows that Tony knows he doesn't always play by the rules, but he's getting the sense that exactly how far off the beaten path he sometimes goes is just dawning on him. Finally Tony says, "You're not killing people."

"Exactly. And I've got no problem breaking the law to catch the guys that do. And in college I had no problem breaking it to try a few new things that I very quickly found I didn't like, and never tried again." Which might not have been precisely true. Seventeen-year-old Tim McGee, fresh out of his dad's house, rebelling against everything the old guy stood for couldn't have cared less about legal or not. But he didn't want to get into the story of why he did start caring again, and why it wasn't long after playing around with drugs. Not with Tony, anyway.

"What did you try?" Abby asks, and he realizes this is something they've never talked about.

"Pot once. Just made me sleepy. Didn't feel good enough to be worth the money or risk."

"You probably got three quarters oregano with just a little real pot, then," Jimmy adds.

"Could be, not like I knew what I was doing. Peyote laced with acid. Didn't like that at all. E."

"I thought you didn't party," Jimmy says.

"I didn't, well not much. Didn't mean I wasn't interested in trying it."

"But you didn't like it?" Breena asks.

"It was better than pot, way better than peyote. I just really don't like being out of control in a way where I can't get it back if I need it. That's also why you've never seen me anything more than mildly drunk."

"No safeword," Abby says.

"Exactly."

"How did you pass the drug test?" Tony asks.

"Six years between doing the drugs and the test. All of that was first semester freshman year."

Tony just stares at him like he'd grown a second head. "You were doing peyote in your freshman year?"

He holds up his index finger. "Once. We were playing Call of Cthulu and the GM thought that each of us taking a button before the game would make it more intense. One of the other players thought lacing them with LSD would be even better."

Abby winces and then covers her mouth with her hands. "Oh, that's the worst idea I've ever heard!"

Tim's nodding at her. "Yeah, it _really_ was."

"What's a Cthulu?" Breena asks.

"Nasty squid demon-god," Abby says. "No wonder you didn't like it."

"Yeah. Good rule of thumb, avoid hallucinogenic drugs and horror role-playing games based on the idea that you're slowly going insane. It's been almost twenty years, and I still won't read Lovecraft."

"So, wait." Tony's staring at him, looking really confused. "You little D&D geeks were snorking down hardcore drugs while you played?"

Tim rolls his eyes a little. "Not usually. Most of the time it was caffeine, cigarettes, and sugar."

"You smoked?" Tony doesn't look like he believed that, either.

"Not really. But if you're in a room with five other guys, and four of them are smoking, taking a drag or two at the start of the night knocks out your sense of smell long enough to make being there bearable. Palmer, you're awfully quiet, how about you?"

"Lots of stuff, but Special K was my favorite. I worked in a vet's office, so I could get it easy. Pre-med and bio background meant I knew how much to take for a nice glow."

"Wait, were you selling it?" Tony's staring at Palmer like he's never seen him before, too.

"No, I meant I could buy it easy. I handled the orders, so getting an extra bottle or two a year wasn't an issue."

"Did you like it?" Ziva asks.

"Oh yeah." He grins at the memory. "Unlike Tim, I liked everything I tried. Liked it a lot. Tried a whole lot, too. K was a good way to cool off on the weekend. E was good, too, lot of fun with pot. Then I was twenty, thirsty all the time, just madly thirsty, and one day I was chugging soda, like maybe six liters of it in two hours, trying to make thirsty stop. Two days later, when I got out of the diabetic coma and the doctors explained how close to dead I had been, I decided taking better care of myself was a good idea."

Palmer rolled his eyes a little, glancing away from traffic to the rest of them. "I suppose it's sort of funny. I tried everything I could get my hands on for two solid years, and then I almost died from an overdose of sugar. Anyway, once I was out of the hospital, that was the end of sugar, most carbs, and all the drugs. Started hitting the gym and yoga, and I'm a lot healthier now."

Tony just stares at the two other guys. Then he looked at the girls. "Let me guess," he asks Breena, "you used to shoot heroin?"

"Nope. No drugs for me."

"Ziva?"

"Not recreationally. But my training involved being subjected to some lesser known compounds to get used to them. It's much easier to keep your head if you know what is happening to you."

"Of course it did. Abby?"

She smiles. "Like Jimmy, you name it, I tried it at least once. And I got hired before the mandatory drug tests, so that's how I got in."

* * *

Two hours later, the girls are dancing with each other. The guys are relaxing at the table they'd staked out when they got to the club.

Tony looks at Tim and says, "Really, a kilt?"

Tim smirks a little.

"Nail polish?"

Tim looks at his fingernails. All night people have been looking at him like he's pretty cool, and especially because he's standing next to Tony, he's really been enjoying it. "It's black."

"You don't dress up in her clothing when you're alone, do you?"

Tim grins and raises an eyebrow. "If I do?"

Tony shudders a little.

"I'm 6'1" and 183. I'd look dumb as hell in her clothing."

Palmer came back with the drinks. "Okay, I saw him shuddering. What are you freaking him out with now?"

"I'm not freaked out, it's just weird."

"The drugs or the kilt?" Palmer put the drinks in front of each of them.

"It's a skirt."

"So?" Jimmy says.

Tim takes a drink, watching the two of them. It feels pretty nice to have Jimmy not weirded out by this.

"We're guys. Not wearing skirts is like one of the primary defining characteristics of guyness."

"Tim?" Jimmy asks.

"Yeah?"

Jimmy kept his face straight and asks with a completely deadpan expression, "You got balls?"

Tim laughs, hard, leans back against the booth, sips his scotch, and says, "Last time I checked."

And Jimmy just looks at Tony, huge smirk on his face.

"Yeah, but was that before you put the skirt on?" Tony asks.

"No, that was about twenty minutes ago when Abby and I snuck off and she was licking them." Tim takes another drink, feeling especially mellow, a little wicked, and just wonderfully fine.

This time, instead of looking disturbed, Tony just grins, shaking his head.

Tim laughs again. "Ease of access."

"You don't need a kilt for that," Jimmy adds.

Tim raises his eyebrow at Jimmy.

Jimmy snorts a quick laugh at them. "Come on, you didn't invent the quickie. Back when twice a year was a good score for you," he shifts his gaze from Tim to Tony, "and you were sticking your dick in any girl that would let you, I was having sex on every horizontal and most of the vertical surfaces at work, including Gibbs' and Ducky's desks. I can get her completely naked, me completely naked, both of us off, and dressed again in ten minutes, eight if I'm in scrubs and she's not wearing pantyhose. And if you think doing it in the back hall of a club is kinky, try sneaking off during one of Ducky's monologues to the storage closet, keeping the door open, having him think those noises you're making are signs of fascination at his topic, and then making it back for the close, without him noticing." Palmer settles back into his seat, takes a drink of his Diet Sprite, and looks immensely smug.

Tony shakes his head. "I think I've got it figured out. Neither of you ever got laid in college."

This caused both Tim and Jimmy to bluster.

"Okay, not literally, I know you both got laid a few times. But regularly? Not even close. And to make up for it, you both want everyone on earth to know you're having sex now."

Tim and Jimmy both seem to think about that.

Tim shrugs. "That's probably true."

"I just really like sex," Jimmy says.

"No." Tony points at himself. "_I_ just really like sex. _You_ like sex in public that can get you fired or killed. Gibbs' desk? He'd headslap your brains out through your nose." He turns to Tim. "And you like... Hell, let's not get to into that..."

"What do you like?" Jimmy asks Tim.

Tim smiles, sips his drink again. "Let's put it this way, there's a good shot that standing next to me, you look vanilla."

"Really?" That's got Jimmy's interest. He's staring at Tim, like if he looks hard enough he can figure this out.

Tim thinks about what he knows about Jimmy, and realizes it's equally likely that standing next to Jimmy, he looks vanilla. Gibbs' desk? Sex in Autopsy, with Ducky there? Jimmy's got a pretty hardcore exhibitionism kink. "Maybe. What exactly is it with you and shoes?"

"Okay, can we not talk about that? The shoe thing is pretty creepy," Tony says, staring at Jimmy.

"What? You look at Ziva in that outfit and your eyes stop going down when they hit her ankles? Right!"

"I'm not saying I don't appreciate the shoes. I'm just saying I don't know what designer, what they're made of, or for that matter, what color they are, off the top of my head." Palmer opened his mouth to answer, and Tony quickly cut in, "And I don't want to know that you know that off the top of your head, either."

Tim decides to get them off of Ziva's shoes. "So, what you're saying is, you think that because the two of us spent so much time being fairly timid introverts that now we're showing off right and left because we can?"

"Yeah. For example," Tony looks away from the other two to watch the girls. It's a fairly fast song and the three of them are bopping around with each other. His eyes trace over Ziva from hair to shoes (they're green) lingering on her curves. He sighs, eyes happy and warm at the sight of her dancing. "I love that outfit Ziva's in. And I certainly want to have sex with her. But I'm not feeling any burning need to do it here. At home, where we've got plenty of room and time, and there aren't two hundred other people, is perfectly fine."

"Oh, we'll do it when we get home, too," Jimmy said with a very wide and happy grin, watching Breena dance, his eye tracking the sway of her skirt on her hips, and the long smooth expanse of naked back. "And probably in the morning, hopefully in the afternoon, as well. Breena's parents have Molly until tomorrow night, and we are going to take advantage of it."

"Too?" Tony looks away from Ziva to Jimmy. "Okay, I know he got in a quickie, when did you?"

"'Bout an hour ago. You guys were dancing with your girls and didn't notice us head off."

"Back hallway?" Tim asks. There were a few good spots back there, and Tim was in no way surprised to find that the sort of club Jimmy and Breena liked had several good spots for a quiet fuck against the wall.

"Top floor." Jimmy pointed to the second level of the club. "Just looked like we were dancing close and slow. Amazingly enough, the fact that I've got on pants in no way stopped or hindered that."

"What do you do about the zipper? I hate getting caught in them," Tim asks.

Jimmy takes a moment to think about that. "Never really thought about it. Just isn't a problem for me."

"You know how I deal with the zipper?" Tony said, voice low and conspiratorial. He waited a beat for them both to lean in to hear his answer. "By having my pants on the floor about ten feet away from my dick. Works every time."

Tim snorts at him and rolls his eyes, then looks away from the guys to watch Abby dance. Sure, he was a little disappointed to not get to see the Lolita Goth outfit in action, but this little pink number, with the thin straps crisscrossing over her back is awfully good, too.

"So, have you ever had sex in public?" Jimmy asks Tony.

"Of course, back when I was in college, you know, when you're supposed to do stuff like that."

"In college you're supposed to read books, go to class, and study," Tim starts, not looking away from Abby, she's saying something to Breena, watching him closely, and he knows that look means good things are going to start happening soon.

"And occasionally ingest hardcore narcotics," Jimmy finishes.

Tony's shaking his head. "Nerds. How did I end up with two nerds for best friends?" He sighs and points to himself. "Phys ed major. My job in college was to play basketball, party, and get laid. And let me tell you, if they had had an honors program for partying and getting laid, I would have gotten it. I set the standard for partying and getting laid. Young basketball players at Ohio State are still being told of the legendary DiNozzo partying and laid technique, and they seek to reach such heights, but fail. So, yeah, I've done it in public, with three girls, at once, in a room with something like one hundred and fifty other people, while my frat brothers took pictures. But I'm not in college anymore, so I don't feel the need to act like it."

"Plus Ziva isn't going to let you get drunk and hook up with three co-eds," Tim says.

Jimmy's still thinking about that. "What were you doing with three of them? I get two. What was the third one doing?"

Tony wiggles his right hand at Jimmy.

"Oh. Yeah. Didn't do anything like that in college."

"Me either."

Jimmy looks at Tim. "Two at once?"

He looks away from Abby to Jimmy. "Nope. Closest I ever got to that was taking Abby, Ziva, and Lee out undercover. You?"

"No."

Tony takes a drink, settles back, enjoying his turn to look smug, watching the girls.

Tim stares at him, and his eyes narrow. "You know, what? I don't buy it. This isn't maturity. You're just getting old. You were thirty-five when I got to NCIS, right?"

Tony looks at Tim. "Yeah."

"So back then, you and your frat buddies were still heading off to Spring Break in Mexico and trying to relive your college days."

Tony smirks. "And succeeding."

"So, back then, you would have had sex in a club."

"But I wouldn't have done it in a skirt."

"Only because you don't have the balls to wear one."

Tony snorts.

Jimmy finishes his drink. "You should change your wedding outfits to kilts. Make him wear one. You know Ducky's gonna wear one anyway, and you like them..."

Tim smiles while Tony looks appalled.

"You're just saying that because as Abby's best man you're safe from having to wear one."

Jimmy laughs. "Did you not hear Breena? Tim's picking the next club we go to, and my guess is she'll have me coated in makeup and decked out for it."

Tim looks at Jimmy for a few seconds. "You're too skinny for a kilt. Places we go, leather pants, chains, ripped t-shirt, contacts. Breena'll probably do something small and black with the back tattoos again."

"First off, yeah, you are picking the next club. Second of all, too skinny? Tim, you weigh ten pounds more than I do."

"Ten pounds that matter."

Tony watches them bicker about it for a moment before saying, "I think Ziva and I are staying home."

Jimmy grins. "Nope. She'll go for it, which means you can't back out. I mean, unless you want Tim and I to take her out."

"She'd eat you two pervs whole and spit you out."

"There are worse fates," Jimmy says with a huge grin on his face.

Tim smirks at Tony, enjoying this way too much. "Just like laser tag, Tony, once you get over how you think you look, you'll have a lot of fun. Who knows, maybe your thirty-five-year-old self will come back out again. The clubs Abby and I like more or less expect you to have sex in them."

Jimmy's eyes go wide. "You are so picking the next club."

* * *

A/N: Pictures of "Tim" in his kilt and Cthulu are up on the blog. charactersaremyheroinn dot blogspot dot com /2013 /05 /shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_19 dot html


	95. Dirty Girl Scout

"What are they talking about?" Breena asks Abby as she dances close to her.

Abby grins, watching the exchange. "Sex. Tim and Jimmy are scaring Tony."

Ziva laughs. "What are they telling him?"

"About having sex here."

"You had sex here?" Ziva asks the two other girls, not exactly surprised by this, but it wasn't something she was expecting either.

Breena nods.

Abby says, "Yes, half an hour ago? Something like that." A huge grin lighting her face.

"God, they're so pretty," Breena says, eyes on the boys, wrapping her arms around Abby.

And Abby nods, they really are. This was definitely going on her list of favorite Tim looks. Sure she loves the rock and roll version of kilt wear, but this version of it is awfully fine, too.

He's sitting there, relaxed, happy smirk on his face, back against the booth, right arm draped along the back, left arm stretched forward, fingers on the rim of his glass. Long, smooth fingers, tipped with black nail polish, circling gently around the rim of a scotch neat.

You might need a jacket to get into this club, but he took it off a few minutes after getting here. An hour of dancing means the maroon dress shirt he had under it now has the sleeves rolled to mid forearm, showing off his wrist cuff. An hour of dancing also means that he's undone the top button and his tie is loose.

What they were doing half an hour ago means that his hair's a little more messed up than usual, something she always appreciates. Add in naked legs, strong calves on display, and yeah, she really likes that look.

Tony's in the middle, and like always, he's pretty. And honestly, he looks a whole lot like he usually does. Suit on, pressed, perfect, cool. Her eyes just sort of skim over him, and it's not that she doesn't love Tony, it's more that classically handsome features and style just never really interested Abby. But Ziva, who's eyes just skimmed over Tim in almost exactly the same way her eyes skimmed over Tony, is watching him, looking like she wants to eat him alive.

Abby knows that Tony's pretty. Knows that he's magazine cover attractive. And while she can appreciate that, it's not the sort of thing she ever really looked twice at.

Jimmy, on the other hand, like Tim, has that sort of different edge that gets her attention. And Jimmy is certainly looking fine tonight, too. He's also taken off the jacket, and his tie wandered off at some point as well, leaving him in brown slacks, a brown vest, and a white button down, with the top two buttons undone.

He's leaning in toward the table, face warm and animated, talking to the guys about Ziva's shoes, which is freaking Tony out a little. Like Tim, he's holding his drink, but Jimmy's the driver, so his is probably Diet Sprite. Unlike Tim, his glass is tall, and he's got his hands touching, fingertips to fingertips, thumb to thumb, with the glass between his palms.

For the first time ever, Abby notices that Jimmy has really nice hands. And she also notices that a wedding ring on a guy is awfully sexy, and is suddenly really looking forward to seeing one, putting one, on Tim.

"Jimmy really likes your shoes," she says to Ziva.

Ziva laughs. "It is good to know someone appreciates them."

"Tony does too, just not as much as Jimmy does."

"No one appreciates shoes as much as Jimmy does," Breena adds, a wicked smile on her face.

Abby lifts an eyebrow. "So what is it with him and shoes?"

Breena smiles and pulls Abby and Ziva close, the three of them dancing together. "He likes the way they feel against him and the way they look when I wear them while we have sex."

Ziva laughs while Abby says, "That's it? We figured he liked to wear them."

"How do you even know about him and shoes?" Breena asks, an amused and somewhat curious expression on her face. Abby's not exactly Jimmy's type, but she's close enough, and if they had gotten together at some point, it wouldn't have shocked her.

Abby reads Breena's look. "Nothing like that. He was the main witness for one of our cases, but he blocked a lot of the memories, so I hypnotized him to get the details out of his head, and it turned out the main thing he was paying attention to was what sort of shoes Ziva and I were wearing. Tim was there and teased the hell out of him for a few days after that."

That makes Breena laugh. "Tim was teasing Jimmy about sex? 'Pot, hello, it's Kettle, you're black.'"

"Yeah. I know. But neither of them knew that about each other at that point. That's part of what they're talking about right now."

"Really?" Breena asks.

"Yeah."

"They look pretty cool with each other," Breena says, eyeing both of them, watching as they double team teasing Tony.

"Yeah, they really do." Abby nods.

And Breena and Abby just stare at each other and smile, both thinking the same general thing.

* * *

Ziva dances and listens, feeling a little left out, but not in a bad way. The four of them are getting closer and closer with each other, and being outside of that isn't a bad thing, it's just the way things are.

And it's not something she minds being on the outside of. She loves Tim and Jimmy, but she can also see the way Breena and Abby watch them, and she knows they do not see the same thing she does when she looks.

And she sees something else, something that will never be true for her and Tony, let alone her and Tony and Tim and Abby or her and Tony and Breena and Jimmy, and that's a sexual attraction that's divorced from jealousy. Tony would have a fit if she looked at Tim the way Breena's looking at him right now. And for that matter, she'd be miffed if Breena was looking at Tony the way she's looking at Tim right now. But Breena and Abby are dancing together, undressing their guys with their eyes, flirting with each other and both of the guys, and enjoying it.

Judging from the way both of the guys are watching them dance, they don't have a problem with it either.

Actually, judging from the way both of the guys are watching them dance, the only potential problem is that Abby and Breena might decide to stop dancing, which would probably make the guys pout.

Abby pulls both her and Breena closer, sliding against them as the beat shifts, keeping her eyes on Tim as she does it, and Ziva decides to ask, "Are the four of you sleeping together?"

Abby laughs, Breena blushes, and Ziva's been reading people for way too long to miss the look that flits between the two of them.

"What's making you think of that? Breena asks.

"Both of you are flirting with both of your guys, but not Tony."

Abby grins. "Are we allowed to flirt with Tony?" and though there is a smile on her face, it's a serious question.

Ziva rocks against Abby, Breena at her back, and thinks about the ring newly on her finger, and knows that whatever she says right now, they'll honor. She thinks about years of Tony off hooking up with any girl out there and the amount of change he had to go through to get to a place where he could be monogamous.

"No."

Breena hugs Ziva. "Then we won't. And no, we aren't all sleeping together." Though she notices another look that goes between Abby and Breena, and can see the two of them are thinking about it. "But, okay, last time we went clubbing, Abby and I danced together really close, got the boys wound up and… well, you can see the way they're watching us. Let's just say that night was a whole lot of fun."

Abby nods. "So much fun!"

"That's where you vanished to? We left to dance alone for a little while, came back to the table, found a pile of money, and you were gone."

"We headed home," Breena says.

"You got all the way home?" Abby asks with a half-disbelieving grin.

"Yeah, but I also got off twice on the ride, which was kind of interesting since I was driving. You?"

"Hotel three blocks down, both of us were too buzzed, too distracted, to drive."

"And you are hoping to do something like that again?" Ziva asks.

"Not exactly, since we're your ride home, but watching them squirm is a lot of fun," Breena says, eyes on Jimmy, but occasionally glancing at Tim, both of the boys watching the three of them dance together.

"And unlike Ziva's club, there are a lot of decent hidden nooks in this one," Abby adds, stroking Breena's neck.

"Well, yeah, after we caught you and Tim last time, we made sure to pick a place with lots of room. Didn't want to have to wait or cramp your style."

"Thank you."

Ziva feels like this shouldn't be much of a surprise, there was that whole thing with Jimmy and Lee, and well, sure Tim looks pretty mild, but anyone paying attention knows he's got something of an exhibitionist streak, still… "This is something you regularly do, sex out in public?"

"Is my lab public?" Abby asks.

"Yes."

"Then yes."

Ziva makes a mental note to always make a lot of noise when heading to the lab. Sure Tim had told her about that one time, but she hadn't realized one time was actually a habit.

"Since Molly, it's a treat for us. You and Tony don't?"

"No. I'm not good at… quiet… and it would be off putting to have an audience."

Breena nods and Abby does too, leaning in to whisper into her ear, her hand stroking down Ziva's arm, "Don't want anyone calling the cops?"

"Something along those lines." No, not really, but she doesn't want to explain why having people watch is a problem.

Breena leans closer to them. "Tony just about spit his drink across the table when you did that. Looks like he's enjoying the show, too. You want us to break this up and back off?"

Ziva smiles, looking at Tony, seeing a whole lot of hot, naked lust in his eyes, and then wrapped her free arm around Breena's neck, adding a little grind to the way she was dancing with Abby, and watched his eyes bulge. And well, maybe this was sort of fun if it got him to look at her like that.

"We dance until the end of this song, then let us get our men."

Abby rests one hand on Ziva's hip and the other on Breena's keeping them both pressed up close to her. "Good plan."

* * *

The song ends, and Abby stalks toward the table where the boys are. Tim's eyes meet hers as she's a few feet away, and a smile lights his face. She leans down to him, brushing her lips over his in a warm kiss, while wrapping her hand in his tie, gently pulling him up.

"Dance time?" he asks.

"Oh yeah." Though she pauses for a moment to take a sip of her drink. She'd gotten it entirely for the name, a Dirty Girl Scout was just too good to pass up, luckily for her it's tasty, too. Basically it's a grasshopper, minty, chocolaty, and very smooth.

She sets the glass down, grabs the napkins under it, tucking them into his pocket. He feels her do it and grins widely. Since Zyphyer, he has brought tissues every time they've been clubbing, but they also already used the ones he brought.

Yes, that look in her eye was indeed signaling good things about to happen.

The music is loud and hard, throbbing away in a strong, sexy beat. They find an easy pace, pelvis to pelvis, legs entwined, dipping and grinding as the music dictated.

"Like the show?" Abby asks.

He kisses her, lips on hers, sliding down her jaw to her ear. "When don't I?"

She grinds against him, getting what she's asking across. But it's been less than an hour since the last time, and he's had a few drinks, so not much is happening for him on that end. Tim kisses her again, circling behind her, trailing his hands down her sides as he presses in close behind her, placing wet kisses on her throat and shoulder, fingers resting gently on her hips.

"My tongue's always up for another round," he says, flicking it lightly along her earlobe.

She turns in his arms, kisses him back, long and deep. "That's an idea. But what if I want to take my time, get you good and hard for a nice," she bites his lip, pulling it a little, "slow" she punctuates that by dragging her tongue across his lip, "fuck?"

His eyes sparkle at her, warm with sex and good humor, as he brushes his fingers through her hair. "Then keep doing what you're doing, I'll get there sooner or later."

"Good."

He kisses her again, sucking gently on her tongue.

"What were you drinking? It's really tasty."

"A Dirty Girl Scout."

He raises one eyebrow, looking very amused at that idea. "A Dirty Girl Scout?"

"Yeah. Yummy, huh?"

"On so many levels. Were you ever a Girl Scout?"

She sees the gleam in his eye and knows where this is going to go.

"Oh yeah." No not really, but this could be a lot of fun. "Until I was seventeen. Helped out with the summer camps until I was twenty."

His eyes slide over her body as his fingers trail from her shoulders to her hips. "So you'd know something about Dirty Girl Scouts?"

"Maybe. Is that the sort of thing you'd like to hear about?"

"Oh yeah." He kisses her neck, and she turns so her back is to his chest, following the music, letting it dictate their moves. He strokes his hands down her arms, twining his fingers with hers, and then feathering over her hands. "I'm wondering," he says, lips on her ear, "what you looked like when you were seventeen. Mostly like you now? Little shorter maybe? Fewer tattoos?"

"Same height I am now. I weighed a little less. My hair was long, mid-back long, and blonde with purple and blue streaks, and the only tattoos I had were the ones I got with Paulette. So the P, the smiley on my finger, and the angels." He kisses each angel on her shoulders.

"And did you have a uniform?"

"Little green skirt, white button up shirt with green stripes, little green tie, sash with badges, something like that, you mean?"

Tim's imaging that. Seventeen-year-old Abby in a Girl Scout uniform, and part of him is sure that like sex in the graveyard this is another thing that'll be added to the why-he's-going-straight-to-Hell-when-he-dies list, but he likes the idea too much to stop thinking about it. After all, it's not like he's having sex with a real seventeen-year-old. Not like he's got any interest in any real seventeen-year-old. But this image, teen Abby, innocent looking outfit, maybe hiked just a bit too high and unbuttoned just a bit too much, yeah, that's hitting most of his buttons just right.

One thing he's always found interesting is that his brain and his body aren't always on the same page. For example, right now his brain is awfully turned on. That idea, along with real Abby pressed up tight, dancing against him, the way she feels and smells, and the sound of her voice filling in extra details (White knee socks! Black mary janes!) about her seventeen-year-old self, all of that means his brain is in a very turned on sex-right-now-yes!, sort of place. His dick on the other hand, does not seem to have gotten this message, yet, and it's just lying there. According to it, he could be doing his taxes or something else completely unsexy.

Oh well, it's not in charge, and as he said, his tongue is always up for another round. And he'll happily enjoy talking each other off if that's what's on the menu for right now. After all, the club isn't closing anytime soon, and his dick'll get the message sooner or later.

Abby's talking. "And of course, no boys are allowed anywhere near a Girl Scout camp, so a big part of being a scout was smuggling them in, and a big part of being a counselor was tossing them out."

"Really?"

"Yeah, gotta find places to hide them, to find a few quiet moments together. And of course, if you're in charge, you've got to be even better at finding those places. And the summer I was twenty, I was a counselor, and we were only a few miles down from a group of Wilderness Scouts. They were on the far side of the lake."

And Tim gets where this is going, and he smiles. This is something they haven't played with, tag team storytelling. He also appreciates her fast forwarding a few years, because if she's seventeen, he's thirteen, and well, thirteen-year-old Tim McGee would have been willing to give his left arm to get laid, but he also wasn't anything anyone needs to be thinking about like that. Sixteen-year-old Tim was awfully lanky and gangly, but not nearly as… well… young.

"And if there's one thing Wilderness Scouts like, it's Girl Scouts."

"Yeah. So, I was doing my nightly rounds, making sure none of the girls had wandered off in search of her very own Wilderness Scout."

"Walking around the lake, looking for dallying scouts?"

"Yeah, seeing if I can find anyone taking advantage of the moonlight."

"And you did. But not like that. I would have been sitting at the side of the lake, watching the sky, taking notes on where the stars were, working on my Astronomy badge."

"'Waiting for someone?' I'd ask."

He can see it in his mind, she'd be standing over him, looking down. "'Ummm…'" Because sixteen-year-old Tim McGee was not what anyone would have ever called smooth.

"'You're on the wrong side of the lake.'"

"'Sorry.' I'd be scrambling around, trying to grab all of my stuff and probably dropping half of it as I did it."

"I'd laugh a little, and help you pack up. 'Astronomy?'"

"'Uh yeah… Trees are in the way on our side. Needed a better view.'"

"'Oh. Well.' And you're looking straight at me, nervous and adorable, hair loose, some of it in your eyes, and I'd reach over and brush it away. 'You can stay, if you want.'"

"'Thanks.' I'd sit back down, not looking at you, blushing from head to toe, rambling on about Pleiades and what I was charting."

"I'd sit down next to you, listen for a bit, watching the stars. 'What's your name?'"

"'Oh, yeah, Tim. Hi. How about you?'"

"'Abby.'"

"I'd hold out my hand to shake yours, half polite, half just wanting to touch you." He pulls her a step closer, kissing her shoulder as they dance. "Wishing I could do something like that, but sure I'm way too much of a geek for you to ever think about me like that."

"But I like geeks, especially cute, young ones on the beach in the moonlight. I'd take your hand, trailing my thumb over your palm, not letting go, and then lick my lips. 'Hello, Tim.'"

He grins at her, desire and amusement lighting his face, watching her lips, and says, "'Hello, Abby.'"

"I don't think you'd be grinning at me like that."

"Well, no. Real-life-sixteen-year-old Tim would have been studying the sand, blushed so hard he glowed in the dark, started stammering about stars, and probably run away. But I don't have to be real-life-sixteen-year-old Tim, that's the fun of fantasy, right?"

"Right."

"And this version of Tim is staring at you like you're the most delicious thing he's ever seen and he wants to eat you, slowly, savoring every mouthful."

Abby laughs. "I like that idea."

"Good. Because I'd lean in toward you, close my eyes, and kiss you, just a gentle brush of lips on lips." And he demonstrated, letting his lips meet hers for a second, before pulling away. "And then I'd look at you, see if you were angry at me—"

"But I'm not. I'm smiling, still holding your hand, giving it a little squeeze."

"I'd scoot a little closer to you, lean in, and kiss you again." And once again he did. A bit longer, more confident this time.

And this time her lips moved against his, stroking gently.

"Seriously, are you two trying to out fuck the Palmers?" Tony asks with a laugh, his voice cutting into their game as he and Ziva danced close to them.

Abby blows Tony a raspberry and looks around, noticing that Jimmy and Breena are also dancing close and necking.

"I don't think it's a competition," Tim answers. "We're just playing."

"Uh huh," says Tony.

"Who's winning?" Abby asks Ziva.

Ziva grins at them, her eyes scanning between the two couples. "I think Jimmy and Breena are a few points ahead." Jimmy's got one hand on the small of Breena's back, the other on her cheek as they dance forehead to forehead, looking into each other's eyes.

Abby kisses Tim, soft and gentle, and then pulls back and turns to Ziva and Tony, flicking her hands toward the far side of the club. "Then shoo. Let us catch up!"

Ziva winks at them, and edges Tony further away.

Abby kisses him again, and once again it's soft and gentle, and a little tentative. His hands slip down her back, one of them twining with her fingers, the other edging down to the bottom of her skirt and just lightly brushing her leg.

"So, you, me, the lake, night time, kissing," she says.

"Oh yeah. You're holding my hand, and my heart's beating a million times a minute."

She places her hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "And you're so cute when your flustered."

"And I am, because no one has ever just looked at me and liked me like that."

"Idiots."

He smiles and kisses her again, letting his fingers ghost along the side of her face and neck. "I'd pet you, like that. Shocked at how soft your skin is, how good it feels, how good just four fingers against your skin can make me feel."

She closed her hand around his, pressing his fingers to her throat. "Feel that, how fast my heart is, how much my body loves yours touching mine?"

"God, yeah."

She drew his fingers to the dip of her collar bone. "You'd undo my top button."

"You have your shirt buttoned all the way up?"

"I do in this fantasy."

"All right!" His fingers traced two inches further down, very softly, just the barest graze of fingertips on flesh, then paused, hovering.

"'You can get the next button, too.'"

He nods, his fingers sliding another two inches down, to the top of her dress. "Where are your hands?"

She squeezes the one holding his. "The other is on your back, inching under your shirt, petting your skin." She doesn't exactly mimic that. Her hand stays on the outside of his shirt, but it does stroke over his low back, just above where it's tucked into his kilt.

He's loving this slow, gentle touch, and thinking this might be a good game for a time when they are home and alone and have plenty of room and can get completely naked. Though, if they were home, and alone, and could get completely naked, they probably wouldn't play with the idea of this. He'd just peel that dress off of her, and she'd have him naked in a minute, and this slow tentative dance wouldn't happen.

But it is happening, and she's kissing him soft and gentle, and he says, but doesn't do, because they are in the middle of a dance floor and this isn't Zyphyer, "I'd flick open the third button, and slip my hand into your blouse, skimming over your breast. So soft, and so light, and my hand would be shaking." And that idea, that image, her sitting on the sand next to him, holding his hand, petting his back while he lightly strokes her breast starts to wake his body up, lets it notice that his brain is thinking sex in a big way.

They're dancing close enough that she notices the slight stirring and grinds against him, encouraging it.

He smiles, kissing her soft and open, letting his lips make love to her, as his body rapidly starts to catch up to his brain.

She slips her hand from his low back to his hip. "I'd start to tug on your shirt. Letting you know I want you to take it off."

"'Only if you take yours off, too.'"

And she grins. "I would. I'd pull back a little, kneeling, make sure you could see me, and undo the last of the buttons."

"I'd reach out, hands still shaking a little, and push it off your shoulders, and then sit there and just stare at your beautiful skin under the moon."

"'Tim.'"

"'Yeah?'"

"'You're still wearing your shirt.'"

"'Oh. Yeah.' I'd yank it off, regretting the few seconds it was over my head and I couldn't see you."

"'You can touch, you know.'"

"I'd lick my lips, and scoot closer to you, pressing chest to chest and kissing you, hard and fast and deep." He presses into her, rubbing his erection against her. "And your skin on mine would have me so hard. I'd be breathing fast and feeling so good all over."

"I'd push you back, so you're lying on the sand, and then straddle you, rubbing against you before lying against your chest and kissing you."

"And this is why fantasy Tim is better than real life Tim, because real life Tim would have lost it right there."

"Really?"

"Half-naked girl rubbing up against me, oh yeah. Of course, real life sixteen-year-old Tim could get it up again in about four minutes, so it wouldn't have been that big of a problem, besides the whole wet and sticky thing."

"Yeah, but I've got plans for fantasy Tim, and they don't involve being wet and sticky, yet."

"Yet?"

She grins and kisses him, then pulls back, letting her hand ghost gently across the front of his kilt, giving him a quick squeeze before resettling on his neck. "Yet. Fantasy Tim isn't going back to the Wilderness Scout Camp a virgin."

"Fantasy Tim is completely on board with that plan and wholeheartedly agrees with your goals," Tim laughs as he says that, and she giggles, too. His hands settle on her low back, and her other hand joins the one at his neck.

He can feel it, soft, cool sand at his back, her weight on his body, naked back under his hands, her hands on his neck, as they kiss.

He shifts one hand from her back to her leg, once again just below the hem of her dress, warm skin on skin, and she rubs her leg against his, drawing it up and a slow, firm slide.

"I would have been wearing shorts, and the kilt's pretty close to that. Love feeling your skin on mine."

"Yeah, this is good." Her leg slips back down his, and for a few beats they just dance, kissing a little, feeling the press of each other's body and the throb of desire and loud music.

"I'd roll us over, and lean back a little, weight on my right elbow. Never seen real live breasts before and I want to look and touch and kiss."

"You would."

He runs his hands over her arms, and then begins to stroke the tip of her index finger with his left hand, letting her feel how he'd be touching her. "Oh yeah. Love your breasts. So soft and perfect. I'd be nuzzling, licking the one, petting the other. Seeing what sort of touch makes you squirm, what makes you gasp or moan."

She presses her face into his neck, licking his earlobe. "That. That light, gentle lick. The way you're just rolling your tongue around my nipple, all wet, soft, and tickly. That gets me moaning. And I'd want to make you sound like that. Want to hear you. So my hand would slip down to your dick, and give you a squeeze."

He kisses the top of her ear, and quietly moans for her. "Just like that, baby."

She looks at him and grins. "'Love hearing you like that.'"

"'Love the fact you make me sound like this. Want to make you cry out, make you scream my name.' I'd kiss my way down your chest, down your stomach, get to the top of your skirt and start to tug it off."

"I'd lift my hips, give you some help getting me naked."

"'You're so pretty.'"

""Pretty?'"

He stops dancing, wrapping his fingers in her hair, and pulls her head back a little, kissing her throat, and then looks deeply into her eyes while saying, "Absolutely fucking gorgeous. Moonlight made flesh. Flesh made desire. Desire driving me crazy, making me want to bury my tongue and fingers and cock in you all at once, make you come a thousand times, calling my name, arching against my body, wet and hot and slick and tight, and sex and love and fuck and all of it made flesh and real and my body on and in yours, and yours on mine, and both of us slipping against each other, rocking toward ecstasy, riding higher and higher on the pleasure of skin on skin."

"Fuck," she breathes it, holding his gaze with hers, reveling in the feel of those words and the heat in his eyes. "No more fantasy, Tim. Let's get off the dance floor."

"God, yes!"

Back room, private room, ladies room, nook behind a door, storage alcove, back alley, he's got no idea where they are and could care even less. There's no one right nearby and that's all that matters.

"Sit down," Abby says.

And he does, legs in front of him, back against the wall, noticing the floor is a little cold, but she settles onto his lap, face to face, hiking up the kilt enough to get access to him, and slips onto him.

He bites his lip as his head falls back against the wall. "Fuck, baby!"

She groans softly, snuggling into him, spreading out her skirt a little. They could be, if you didn't look at their faces or missed the slight rocking motion, just taking a break, snuggly and close.

He wraps his right arm around her, a gesture that did look tender and protective, while his left scoots under her skirt, finding her clit.

His lips press against her shoulder, and she turns a little to kiss his temple.

"Slow?" he asks.

"Yeah."

So his thumb begins a soft, languid dance, barely moving over her skin.

"So good." She gives him a quick and firm squeeze, and he groans. "I was wondering, can you get me off hard enough, slow enough, to get you off without anything else?"

His eyebrows rise. He's always loved riding her orgasm to his own, and he's certainly gotten her off long and hard before, but without any friction, especially on a second round… "Don't know, but I'm up for trying."

She squeezes him again. "I thought you'd be."

"You keep doing that and it'll be a lot easier." Sure friction works better than pressure, but pressure is good, too. And the pressure of her clenching around him, as his thumb rubbed in slow, firm circles, faster to get her closer, stopping dead when anyone walked by them to spin it out, letting the music dictate his pace, yeah, that was awfully sweet.

Apparently the correct answer is no. Just pressure, sweet, hot, slick, pulsing pressure isn't enough. Not on a second round, not after two scotches. Maybe if they had done this first, but they didn't, so it's not enough to get him off.

It is enough to get him so frustrated he wants to cry. It's enough to keep him rock hard, begging for any friction, at all, because by that point even the suggestion of friction would do it for him, let alone any real friction.

And it's enough that once she calmed all the way back down again, she made sure to have a good firm hold on the base of his dick as she pulled off because he would have gotten off otherwise.

And it is more than enough to make sure that once she had him standing, all she had to do was slip her mouth down his dick once, and his head was thrown back, and he was shaking, trying not to yell at how good that climax felt.

And maybe he does have an exhibitionist streak, and maybe in ten years waiting to get home will make sense, but right now, he's with the sexiest woman on earth and he loves her more than life itself and he's high as a kite on all the happy chemicals flooding through his body and this feels so damn good that he can't imagine not doing it.

They stand there, leaning against the wall and each other, relaxing, kissing gently, and this is just all sorts of fine.

On the ride home, he catches Palmer's eye, and knows that Jimmy gets this, and he suddenly feels really sorry for Tony that he was hooking up with nameless strangers for all those years and missed out on it.

* * *

A/N: Got shots of Michael Weatherly and Brian Dietzen all hot and suited up on the blog. charactersaremyheroin dot blogspot dot com /2013 /05 /shards-to-whole-ncis-fanfiction_20 dot html


	96. The Middle Path

Hours later, they're back home and in bed, tired, but not quite ready to sleep yet. Abby lays next to him, her leg draped over his hip, and he rests there, relaxing against soft sheets and her warm body. It's dim in their room, but the lights in the parking lot provide enough of a glow that he can see the half-amused expression on her face when she says, "So, really, you, your buddies, peyote, LSD, and Cthulu? What on earth made you guys think that was a good idea?"

He looks up at the ceiling a little, trying to get across the idea that sure, _now_, he knows that was the dumbest idea in the history of dumb ideas. "Eman, the DM, tried it with Vampire and had a lot of fun. And well… okay, the first part of the game was excellent. I mean, we were _in_ that game. No more characters, no rolling, just straight in it.

"We were playing the 1920s version of it, so it's all roaring twenties and speakeasies, hot jazz and cool blues, pocket flasks, bath tub gin, tommy guns, flappers, and demons, and it was _fucking amazing_." He shakes his head, remembering how awesome that first half of it was. He smiles a little, too, this is the first time he's been able to think about it without automatically flashing to the end of that night. "But, in Cthulu, every time you run into something creepy you get a little more wisdom about what is really out there and a little less sane, and well, that part of it was working, too. Nothing too big at that point, there was this guy who kept talking to me, and no one else could see him, but his advice was pretty good, so I kept listening. Kept getting a bit less sane every time I did. And every time you get less sane, the harder it is to not make decisions that'll knock your sanity down even further.

"I have never been that deep in a character. Not before. Not since. Not when I write. Not when I game. Never. But that night I was Stephen Brent, demon hunter. Tim was just gone. I can still smell the leather jacket and feel the whip in my hand and the fedora on my head."

"Whip and fedora?" She's grinning at him, liking that idea.

"I may have based Stephen a bit more on Indiana Jones than was strictly necessary."

"Ah."

"Anyway, I sat through the whole first act of the King in Yellow…"

He can see Abby doesn't know what that is. "It's a play, supposedly filled with the secrets of the universe, but watching it drives you raving insane. And by the end of it I was convinced I was being slowly eaten alive by maggots the size of my fingers. I could see the bones sticking out of my hands and feet, unable to move and get them off while they went to work on my arms and legs."

She cringes at that and pets his chest.

"They had to gag me to keep the screaming quiet enough so we didn't get busted. Apparently I had taken enough that the effects lasted ten hours, but since LSD also screws your time sense, it felt like three days to me."

She winces again, and then kisses him, stroking his face. "God, baby, I am so sorry."

He nods, also wincing. "Anyway, that's why I don't like maggots. I probably would have done it again if we had just quit at the midpoint, but we were all having a great time, so we didn't stop, and then I was in a theatre, watching the play, and these white faceless flesh eating blobs were slowly crawling all over..." He stops and shakes his hands, trying to flick off invisible maggots. "Sorry, it's still a really vivid sense memory. Anyway, tried E a month later, and it felt a whole lot different, pretty nice really, but by then I also couldn't handle not having an off switch."

She kisses him again, her hands holding his. "I can understand that. I've only tripped twice. Once after a Bill Hicks show."

"Who?"

"Awesome comedian. He was a big fan of peyote and how it could hook you into the universal consciousness. And it was really nice. Peaceful, beautiful colors, enveloping love. Really good. Of course, he ended his shows talking about how energy and love were all connected and we were all one, so I was primed for a good trip. Second time was a few months later at Burning Man. Sitting outside in the desert at night watching the fire dancers high as a kite was awesome."

"I can imagine," he says with a little smile, part of him wondering what it would be like to try that with someone you love, safe and comfortable, in a good headspace, maybe while making love.

The smile on her face makes him think that she knows what he's thinking. "After we retire?"

Yeah, she does. He nods.

For a long minute she's staring at him, feeling his fingers between hers. "You used to peek at your Christmas presents, you fought with your dad all the time, and skipped out on Annapolis, did some fairly serious drugs first semester of college, but by the time I met you, you were awfully follow-the-rules, what happened?"

He kisses her fingers. "Every time I broke them I got burned pretty bad. Driver's Ed. What's the first thing you learn? Get in a new car, figure out what everything does, _then_ turn it on and drive. So it's my sixteenth birthday, it's the most beautiful car ever, and I hop in, drive a few blocks, hit a bug, end up with a nasty smear on the windshield, and then get hit by a fucking bus while messing around with the windshield wipers. And to make matters worse, it was my left arm that got broken, so I got to spend the next two months fumbling around with the wrong hand. That's why I can mouse left or right handed.

"What'd they beat into us in school? Drugs are Bad! Stay away from Drugs! I get to college, trip once, and it was beyond terrible. I was a pretty nervous kid, especially when my dad was around, but college was great. I was free. He couldn't even pull the 'as long as I'm paying for you' crap because I earned my scholarships. And that trip shot it to Hell. I spent the next two years scared and wondering if I really was losing it. That's part of why I didn't go home summer after freshman year, my mom would have noticed something was wrong with me.

"Don't have sex before you get married, let alone with someone you're not in love with. They beat that into us in church. Broke that one, and not only wasn't it great, and not only did she never see me again, but she let all of her girlfriends know I was a lousy fuck."

"That's horrible! You didn't mention that before."

"Not exactly my favorite part of that story."

"I'm really sorry."

He shrugs a little. "Anyway. It didn't take too long to figure out that going really straight arrow provided me with a decent comfort zone, gave me some control. You met a guy who was starting to get his feet under him again, looking for the middle ground."

"Was dating me part of that?"

"Yeah. Hoping I wouldn't get smacked too hard for trying something against the rules again."

"I was against the rules?"

"Girl like you, guy like me, oh yeah. So was the tattoo. I'd been thinking about it for a while, fairly sure I'd screw it up and best case scenario end up with something spelled wrong, worst case Hepatitis. But I got it and fate didn't smack me, and you decided to go out to lunch with me, and it looked like maybe I didn't need quite so straight or narrow of a path."

"And you've been branching out since?"

"A little at a time. I think I might wear the kilt to the next family gathering."

She smiles wide and bright. "Shabbos at Ziva's. Can't wait to see that."

"Something along those lines. Tony was pretty funny. Ten years ago I would have never guessed he was so conventional."

"Ten years ago, I don't think he was. Or it might just be the fact that _you're_ wearing it."

"Yeah, that's always part of the interaction. Felt really good that Palmer was cool with it."

"Jimmy's cool with a lot of things."

"Apparently. Actually, if feels really good that nothing I do freaks Jimmy out. He just sort of looks at me and rolls with it."

Abby strokes his face. "Baby, that's what having friends is about."


	97. July 2014

He saw the house the second week of July.

They hadn't even really been looking for one, not yet. But there it was, two streets down from one of Tim's crime scenes.

And driving past it, toward a dead body, he just caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye. In and out of his vision. It didn't make much of an impression. A house. For sale. Kind of, sort of, Victorianish. Big wrap around porch. Tidy yard. Probably three or four bedrooms.

And then there was a dead sailor, and pictures to take, and a case to solve.

Three days later he was back taking witness statements, interviewing the neighbors, seeing if anyone heard anything. (No.) When the third one told him that no, he'd heard nothing, saw nothing, that as far as he could tell a ghost wandered into Sergeant Jamis' house, Tim started asking some non-standard questions. How were the schools? Quiet neighborhood in general? Traffic good at rush hour?

Tony pulled him aside the second time he did it. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Research."

"For what?"

"1721 Kendal St. About half a mile that way." He pointed behind them.

"You're house shopping?"

"Sure. Not like we're getting any closer to solving the case by talking to these people, so I might as well get something useful out of this."

Tony rolled his eyes. But for Tim, who was liking the answers he was getting, this was proving to be very interesting.

* * *

"I was thinking..." Tim said to Abby as they sat down to eat dinner.

"Yeah."

He smiled at her, spooning some salsa on his fish taco. "I want to show you something. It'll be a wedding present if you like it."

She looks curious and a little disbelieving, adding some salt to hers. "You want to show me my wedding present before you get it for me?"

He nodded. "Yeah. 'Cause if you don't like it, I really don't want to pay for it."

Her expression shifted to curious and pleased. "What is it?"

"For right now, a mystery." He took a bite and chewed quickly. "But, if you're free tomorrow around two, we can go see it."

Tomorrow was a Saturday, and he knew she didn't have anything scheduled for two.

She took a bite of hers. "Ohh… yeah, hake was a good choice, we're definitely making this again." She took one more bite, chewed, swallowed. "And yes, I'm free, and will happily go see your mystery present with you."

* * *

They were ten minutes away when he stopped the car.

She looked around, and of all the things she could have expected, this was nowhere on the list. "We're in a Starbucks parking lot. You're getting me coffee for a wedding present. You do know I'm not Gibbs, right?"

He laughed, leaned over, and pulled a scarf out of his pocket. "Blindfold."

That got an amused and skeptical look out of her. "Blindfold?"

"Yeah, you'll know what it is when we get close, and I want to keep the surprise as long as I can."

She shook her head, but then turned away from him so he could tie the scarf around her eyes.

"Good?" he asked.

"Yeah. Just tight enough and I can't see."

"Okay. About ten minutes to go."

"So, do I get any hints?" Her excitement was starting to peek out, and he was enjoying it.

"You know where we are, at least within ten minutes, and you know it's a big enough expense I don't want to just hope you like it."

"So, we're in Falls Church... And it's expensive..." He was fairly sure her eyes would have gone wide if she wasn't blindfolded. "It's a house, isn't it?"

"Maybe." He laughed.

"It is! You're taking me to see a house."

"Possibly."

"What's it like?"

"I haven't said it's a house, have I?"

"It's got to be a house."

He thought carefully for a few seconds wanting to make sure he said this right. "If it is a house, and I'm not saying it is, then telling you what this hypothetical house may be like would make the blindfold counter-productive."

"Hmmmp." She's facing him, and even with the scarf covering half her face, her expression of pleased frustration came through loud and clear. "Wasn't your last case out here?"

"Depending on where here might be, the answer to that could be yes."

"Trying to trick answers out of you is a pain in the ass."

"Well, lucky for you, you'll know for sure in two minutes. So, if this thing I am taking you to see was a house, what would you like it to be like?"

"Big enough for us and kids. Trees. Lots of trees. And a porch, has to have a porch. And the sort of front room that has one of those windows you can sit at. And green. Green would be good. I love the idea of a green house."

"Uh huh. Anything else?"

"Two floors. Maybe one of those little tower looking things? Gingerbread detailing? Ohhh a copula. Porch swing? Flowerbeds, with roses."

He pulled into the driveway and stopped the car. "You stay put. I'll open the door and help you get out."

"Okay." She was grinning at him.

He got out and went around to her side, opened the door, and took both of her hands, helping her out. Then he pointed her toward the house and took off the blindfold.

"It's blue, but we could paint, and there's no tower or copula, but it's got pretty much everything else you wanted. What do you think?"

She just stared at it, eyes wide. "It's really a house."

"Yeah. Do you like it?" He was starting to get nervous, not sure what her expression meant.

She started walking toward it. "Can we go in?"

"Realtor will be here in five. Until then, we can see the outside."

She headed for the backyard and stopped once it was in view. There actually were rosebushes along the sunny side of the house. Half-wooded lot in the back, back porch with space for a grill and table, and a swing set with a slide. She stopped, looking at it for another long minute while Tim felt more and more nervous.

"If you don't like it, it's not a big deal. I just thought—"

And then she was in his arms, kissing him, lips soft and happy against his. She pulled away when they heard another car drive up, and said one word, quietly, to him, "McSciutos!"

And, he had to admit, that sounded awfully good.


	98. Operation: McSciutos

And like a year and some earlier when Abby went on Depo in the first place, going off of it isn't just something that happens quick and easy. It's not like a light switch that you just flick off.

Granted, this time she was only eight days away from her next shot, so they didn't have to wait that long to get into the "no birth control" part of life.

But, well, there's no easy way to tell when it stops working. Obviously, there's a really visible sign that'll show up eventually, but, if you're trying to get pregnant as soon as possible, and if you succeed, that sign doesn't show up, and if you don't want to be taking a pregnancy test every morning, then you need to have an idea if you even had a target to shoot at, let alone hit it.

So, even before her last appointment should have been, Tim and Abby swung into research mode.

And they're good at research. They're in bed, each with their own computer, learning the intricacies of ovulation.

He's reading away, and looks up, "You know, this really should have been part of the Sex Ed stuff in health class."

Abby nods. "Yeah. That would have been useful."

"I mean, who knew the cervix moves around depending on where you are in your cycle, let alone opens and closes?" Honestly, Tim's finding all of this pretty cool. The idea that her body does all of this stuff and they can pay attention, record data, and use it to make a baby faster and easier makes his inner science wonk really happy.

"I didn't. I knew about the temperature thing, but not the cervix thing."

They read some more.

"Think they have an ap for this?" Tim asks.

"Huh?" She looks up from her computer screen to him.

"Just seems like a waste of time to have to print out a chart, take your temperature, write it down, and keep track of it manually." He's googling. "Huh… Yeah. Not seeing anything. I mean, sure you can't make a device to check the other stuff, but how hard can it be to make a thermometer that'll keep track of your temperatures, and then upload it to your phone on its own?"

Abby shrugs. "You'd be better at answering that than I'd be."

"You know, it really shouldn't be that hard to make." He's grinning.

"You've got a project for this weekend, don't you?"

"I think I do."

* * *

Three digital thermometers, a selection of chips, the internals of a few old phones, a soldering iron, some duct tape, and a few hours on Saturday took care of the having to manually record temperature information aspect of this. Sure, it wasn't the prettiest thermometer ever, but unlike the ones at the drugstore, this one would automatically upload Abby's information to the program he wrote anytime it was less than twenty feet away from her phone.

And that was pretty cool.

And unlike the rest of this, it was part he could actually help with, so that was cool, too. (Apparently being turned on messes with getting good baselines for cervical position and vaginal fluids, so though he was more than willing to help with keeping track of that, his involvement would have been counter-productive.)

And so, first thing Sunday morning, Operation: McSciutos began.

* * *

A/N: Yeah that was pretty short, but tomorrow will more than make up for it.


	99. August 2014

This time a year ago, he was practically freezing to death. Which must be why this year he's on the verge of heat stroke.

Camp Lejeune in Jackson, NC, aka Hell, is where they've been for the last four days, and with the way this is going, probably three more, and while Tim used to be awfully sure he'd never complain about being too hot again, he's getting to the point where that's unlikely to be true all that much longer.

It's a man hunt. An infuriatingly frustrating (and hot) man hunt.

Matthew Toph killed his wife and his wife's best friend. Then he ran. And finally he made a call on his cell, and they traced it. That was stupid. Unfortunately, that's where stupid stopped.

Apparently, he decided that the best place for a Marine on the run to hide out was a place filled with thousands of other Marines. There are so many stationed at Lejeune that no one knows everyone else. Wear the right uniform, do something useful, look like you belong, and no one is going to notice you. Add to that the fact that at any given time there are hundreds of Marines being shipped into and out of Lejeune, and blending in, hopping a transport, and getting far, far away from his dead wife and her buddy isn't going to be a problem.

At Lejeune he's just one more Jarhead in an endless sea of Jarheads.

They were able to get the base shut down as soon as the call got made, so they know, sort of, where he is, and they know he hasn't left.

But they still have to find him, and there are over 150,000 people at Lejeune. So it's not like they can just call the CO and have him find the guy.

They've got to really hunt for him.

Through every single building.

In what is approximately 100% humidity, 110 degree heat, and with blood sucking mosquitos the size of helicopters bearing down on them every time they go from one building to the next.

By day three, Tim's starting to think he might have had a better time in Afghanistan.

* * *

On the upside, with over 150,000 people and over 11,000 acres to search through, they did get some help. It's not just the four of them out there, so that makes it a bit easier. And on top of that, as the senior team, they each have a team of their own, sort of.

Gibbs, Ziva, and Tony are all running agents, making sure the search happens.

Tim's on logistics. Which means, for all practical matters, he's in charge of the hunt. Somehow Vance got the idea that good-with-computers equaled logistical-expert, so he's the guy who's making sure they don't keep going over the same ground again and again. And while computer expert does not in fact equal logistical expert, he does realize his skill set has the most overlap with logistics, so it's not too far outside the bounds of reasonable that he'd be in charge of this.

They've also only got twelve men, so he's running the logistics from his phone and laptop, while also searching.

Which is, honestly, nerve wracking. He screws this up, and the likelihood of looking like a good choice for head of Cybercrime is going to be shot to pieces.

But he's got the perimeter secured. Plenty of Marines around to take care of that. He can't stop traffic from coming in and out, people have to eat, and Marines need to get to where they're going, but, once again, lots of warm bodies around who can be put on search duty, making sure Toph hasn't hopped a ride out with an empty supply truck.

Next up was tracking down anyone at Lejeune that Toph knew, all 318 of them. They all got shoved in an auditorium, while their places were searched. No sign of Toph, but the dogs got a hit on him in one of the rooms, so there was a lead.

He put Gibbs on interrogating Blen, the Marine who's room Toph had been in, and let the dogs chase down the scent, feeling like maybe this was really going to be done soon.

Which came crashing down when it came out that Toph had been stationed here for six months three months ago, and the reason the dog caught the scent was because Blen and Toph had roomed together back then.

Any scent trace was useless. No way to tell a dog that yeah, he's got the right scent, but we need the new scents, not the old ones. He kept the dogs at it, no reason not to, but got used to the idea that it wasn't likely to be turning up anything useful anytime soon.

Which left searching piece by piece and pulling the perimeter tighter and tighter, hoping to catch Toph in his net.

Day two and three he got every civilian who can leave out. Last thing he needs are big crowds this guy can hide in, let alone someone easy to grab and use as a hostage. But sorting through all of them, making sure Toph didn't toss on some civies and just walk out, took a lot more manpower.

Then he locked down anyone who didn't have any vital business and made sure that every person in lock down was accounted for. Between those two moves that got 110,000 people out of the search pool.

Which still left a ton of people and a lot of ground to cover.

* * *

Tim's staring at the map, chewing on a pen, willing ideas for how to do this faster to come to him.

He jerked a little when he felt a hand on his shoulder, then looked up and saw it was Gibbs.

"You're doing fine, Tim." He noticed that shortly after talking about Shannon, Gibbs stopped calling him McGee when they're alone or off duty. He kind of likes being Tim, but it's still a little unsettling. Sometimes he wants to look behind himself and see who Gibbs is talking to.

"Wish I was doing this faster."

"You and everyone else."

"So, what do you have for me?"

Gibbs marked off a large square of the map, the wilderness training area. "Dogs are done with this. He's not in there."

"Good." Tim had been hoping to use infrared to search for people in the wilderness areas, but there are close to fifty men who were in the middle of a month long, out of contact, wilderness survival training run, and the CO was extremely displeased at the idea of trying to yank them out. So they went in with the dogs, looking for Toph.

He grabbed his cell and flashed a text to the man in charge of maintaining the perimeter. Tim lets Lt. Grener know that he can move his Marines to the south and east sides of the wilderness area. The net around Lejeune is slowly getting tighter.

He rubbed his eyes and checked his watch. Eight thirty, sun would be gone any minute, and that would end any outdoor searching they could do.

He checked the map again, noticed that the mechanical bay, a huge complex designed to take care of literally tens of thousands of vehicles and hundreds of thousands of other tools and equipment, was right next to the western perimeter.

"Once the sun is down, switch your guys to the mechanical bay. Take Ziva's and Tony's too. Let's get that completely done tonight, and then we'll quit for the night."

Gibbs nodded, grabbing his cell, taking a moment to get it to the right screen and then slowly texting his team. It's been a year, but Gibbs was getting the hang of his smart phone. He looked up from his cell, slipping it back into his pocket. "On it, Boss."

Tim shook his head. "That's just flat out wrong."

"On it, Tim."

"Better."

* * *

It took two hours, but they got the mechanical bay searched, and found something useful. Back in one of the storage areas there was a cot, a few changes of clothing, and Toph's gun.

Finally, something to go on.

First thing in the morning. Yeah, they'd all like to do it sooner, but the dogs have to sleep. Just like you can't tell them find new scents not old ones, you also can't tell them, "I know you worked all day, but now we need you to do all night, too." Well, you can, and they will, they're dogs after all, and really eager to make their handlers happy, but if you want good results, you've got to let them rest. And Tim has no interest in blowing this because the dogs didn't get enough rest.

So, whenever it is they wake up, they'll be back at it, and hopefully this time, with a hot trail, they'll find Toph.

* * *

Because Lejeune is the Marine training ground, it's also where a lot of Marine graduations happen, too. So there's a ton of fairly decent motels and hotels nearby. That's the upside of being away from home, at least he's in a decent hotel: comfortable beds, soft sheets, AC works, wifi is reliable, and the coffee maker is functional.

Downside, he's sharing a room with Gibbs, again.

Upside, this one has a bathroom, with a door, with a lock, and functional hot and cold water, all of which Tim appreciates.

Sure, Tony gets to snuggle up with Ziva every night, and yeah, he's jealous of that. (Really jealous. Almost slapped Tony upside the back of the head when he sauntered down to breakfast, big I-got-laid-this-morning smile on his face.) But he's got some privacy and can at least text Abby every night.

Still, by night four, it's worn thin.

"Problem?" Gibbs asks as they walk through the lobby and he heads to the front desk to get his own room.

"Yeah. You snore and get up before the crack of dawn to do calisthenics in our room. I want sleep." And yeah, all of that is true, but…

Gibbs just stares at him, then grins. "Sleep?"

Tim rolls his eyes.

Gibbs smirks. "Tell Abby I said hello."

"Quit smirking. You would have done the same thing if you could have."

That gets a raised eyebrow as they walked toward the room they share.

"Don't give me that. If texting had been around in the '80s, you'd be able to do it as fast as you speak and one handed."

Gibbs laughs and opens the door. "Letters. We wrote letters back then."

"I'm sure you did," Tim says, shouldering his go bag, handing Gibbs the second key card to his room. It's standard procedure to have someone else on your team have a key to your room. "See you in the morning."

"'Night."

* * *

Skype is the bestest friend of the man away from his sweetie.

Yes, indeed.

He sent Abby a text. _Skype, 10 minutes? _ And then hopped in the shower. Cool water rinsing away the day's sweat feels awfully good. When he gets out, his computer is chiming at him. He hit the answer button, while drying himself off.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself," she says. He can see her face and upper body, she's got on one of his gray t-shirts and is sitting up against the headboard of their bed. The square in the bottom where his picture goes is still black. "Where's Gibbs?"

"In his own room, on the other side of the hotel. He says hello." Finally the picture of him, sitting against the headboard of the hotel bed pops up. He's got the computer on the bed next to him, so she can see him from his knees up.

"Good!" She grins at him, eyes traveling over his body. "Ohhh… naked and wet! What's on your mind?"

"You." He's toweling off his hair. "Getting home as soon as possible."

"How's it going?" She asks while standing up and moving out of view.

"Not bad, might have a lead. Where are you going?"

"Didn't know you were on your own when I made the call. Getting into something more interesting. What kind of lead?"

He likes the sound of more interesting. "We found where he was hiding out. And whenever the dogs wake up, we can set them on tracking him again."

"That sounds good." He hears a drawer open, and the sound of clothing hitting the floor. "So tomorrow night, maybe the day after?"

"Yeah, maybe. If we're lucky. If he hasn't vanished. If the dogs can trace him. They keep getting caught up on all the different scent trails of this guy."

"You'll get him."

"God, I hope so."

"You will. You guys always do."

"Never run a manhunt before. And this one… he could slip through so easy. I've got to trust that over 2000 people are all doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing."

"They are. And you will get him." And with that she slips back into view.

For a long minute he just stares at her, then he says, "Oh God, baby, I really like interesting." She moves the computer a little so her whole body, kneeling on the bed, is in the shot, and he drags his eyes from her feet to her head. "Yep," he's nodding his head, eyes glued to her image, "love interesting."

Interesting was a scarlet corset, with black laces, black garter belt with red ribbons and those black stockings with the red laces up the back, and a black lace choker with red beads. With the way she was kneeling he couldn't tell if she was wearing panties or not, and he was enjoying the anticipation of not knowing.

"I thought you might. So… what would you be doing if you could get your hands on my interesting self?"

He grins, hand drifting to his lap, wrapping around his dick. "You know, that's the best question I've had all day."

"Really? Sounds like you had a pretty depressing day."

"It's getting better by the second. So…" His eyes continued to drift over her. "I think I'd be kneeling behind you, then gently shift your hair over to your right shoulder," she did as he said, gathering it up in her fingers and slipping it over, "and start kissing your ear, down your neck, and then tug on the collar a little with my teeth. That sound good to you?"

"Yeah. I'd twist my fingers in your hair, and run my right hand over your thigh."

"Mmmm…" Yeah that sounds like a good start.

"What would your hands be doing?"

He thinks about it for a second. "On your hips, finding out if you're wearing panties."

She shifts a little, so he can see the unbroken line of naked skin from the top of the stocking to the bottom of the waistband on the garter belt.

"No panties, then," he says with a grin.

She smiles widely at him, and he loves that look, all beautiful joy and wicked sexiness, and it's just so good, and the fact that it's aimed at him feels even better. "Nope. Didn't think I needed them."

"Not today." He licks his lips and pulls a little on himself, watching her trace her fingers from the top of her stocking to the crest of her hip. "Anything you want me to do with your interesting self, today?"

"Lots of things."

"Like…"

"Like getting me out of this outfit, laying me out, getting me off with your tongue, fingers, and cock."

He grins and sighs. "God, baby, if I could…"

"I know. I've been really turned on today. Everything is getting to me, and I want you, here, in our bed, in my body, right now!"

"Good. Want you too. Want you so much. I'd be kneeling behind you, kissing your neck and shoulder, and then I'd start unhooking the corset." It's got laces up the front, but they just provide fine control for the size. About twenty hook and eye closures up the back actually open and close the corset. "Kiss my way down your back as I got it unhooked."

"That sounds so good." She turns so her back is to the camera, and unhooks the corset. Takes her longer to do than it would have taken him, but he would have been able to see what he was doing.

"Run my fingers over your tattoos. Really light, the kind of touch that makes you shiver." He can see her ghost her fingers along the angels at her shoulders. "Follow my fingers with my tongue and teeth, just dragging them over your skin, making you squirm."

"Talking about it is making me squirm."

"Yeah, and doing it'd be better." He rubs his hand over his dick a little more firmly and wishes he had brought lube with him. Nothing he can do about it. Not like he's never gotten off with just a hand and spit before. "I'd settle against the headboard, like I am now, and pull you to sit between my legs, back against my chest, your legs over mine."

She shifts around so she's back against the headboard, computer in front of her, legs wide.

"God, you're so beautiful." And he's not sure if it's four days away or something else, but right now she's just so fabulously delicious. Everything about her is just screaming sex at him, and he wants her so bad.

She smiles, then slips her index finger into her mouth, licking the tip of it, and then sucking on it.

He groans and squeezes himself.

"I'd lick your earlobe, nipping at it a little, and my hands would find your breasts, soft, slow strokes." His right hand mimics what he'd be doing, while his left continues to slowly stroke his dick. She grins and starts to touch her breasts, pleasing herself with her touch, making him harder as he watches.

And he likes watching, loves seeing her fingers on herself, and he hopes she's enjoying seeing what he's doing. He spreads his legs a little wider, cups his balls, gives them a gentle tug, and watches as her hips start a slow roll to go along with the way she's moving.

Her nipples are hard, pink, begging to be licked, sucked, and he can't do that, wants to, but can't, so he takes the story somewhere else.

"Get you off with my fingers, cock, and tongue, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then scoot up a bit, and slide onto me." Abby shifts from sitting to kneeling, spreading her legs, spreading her lips with her fingers, and letting him watch as her middle finger slips over her clit.

"Fuck, baby! That's one of my favorite sights. You wide open with me deep inside you. We'd have the mirror in front of us, and I'd have one hand on your breast, the other on your clit, rubbing you off while you ride me."

He spits on his hand, getting it wet and slick, and goes back to stroking himself, long and slow, eyes glued to her fingers on her body, staring, savoring every detail.

"Wanna watch you get off."

She bit her lip a little, and rubbed faster.

"So beautiful, baby, watching you makes me feel so good. Love this, love you all hot and wet. I'd be right up behind you, fingers moving light and fast, rolling your nipple, pulling it a little, kissing your ear and shoulder, and talking you off, just like this."

Her head drops back, and she's got that intense expression, the one that would look like pain to a stranger but he knows means she's about ten seconds away from getting off.

"God, Abby, can't wait to feel you come on me. Want to feel your body pulsing against mine. Feel you slam down on me, squeeze me tight, and call out my name."

"Fuck! Tim!" Her hips were moving fast, jerking, and her breath was coming in fast panting moans.

"You look so good, want to eat you, want to feel you, need your body rippling on mine like I need air."

Her chest was flushed pink, and her whole body twitched, hard, and he knew that was it. He let his own hand relax, forced it to stroke slow and light as she slumped back on the bed, panting.

"Watching you get off will never get old."

She opened her eyes slowly and grinned lazily at him. "Glad to hear it." Then she looked at him more carefully. "You don't look done."

"I'm not. You said you wanted to get off on my cock, fingers, and tongue. That's cock and fingers. Catch your breath a little, and we'll get to tongue."

"That sounds good."

"Glad to hear it." He stops stroking and just holds himself. "If I was there, you'd be slumped against me, breathing softly, and I'd have my face pressed against your neck."

"Yeah. I'd turn my head and kiss you, long and sweet."

"Yes, please."

"Run my fingers through your hair, hold your hand in mine, and suck your tongue like a candy."

"Oh!" His hand starts to stroke again.

"And I'm thinking, if you're going to be getting me off with your tongue, I should return the favor. So how about you scoot down, lay on your side, and let me put my mouth to good use, too."

He scooted down and laid on his side like she said, shifting the computer so he was in view from his hips to head. "Good?"

"Yeah, I can see everything I want to."

"What, no foot porn?"

"Ummm… Do I look like Jimmy to you?"

"No, baby, you really don't. And I can't even begin to explain how good of a thing that is."

Laughing, she lay on her side, one leg propped up on their headboard and angled the computer so he could see her from her neck to knees.

"Like that?"

"Any chance of your face getting in the shot?"

"Maybe." She sat up, and for a moment he had a very up close shot of her bosom as she messed around with the computer and then lay back down. This time all of her was in the shot.

"Much better." He went back to stroking his dick, waiting to see what she'd do next.

"I'm thinking I'd start fast, suck you all the way down in one long pull, and then slide back get my lips really wet, keep them tight, and then slip them over the head again and again."

He groaned a soft, "Oh fuck," spit on his hand again, held his fist tight, and began to work just the tip.

"Good?"

"Shit, yes, good. Before I lose it, I'm taking your stockings off. You told me to get you naked, and I will. Gonna slip them down your legs, using my fingers and kissing as far down as I can."

"Do you actually know how to work a garter belt?" She's worn one before, but he's never taken it, or the stockings, off.

"Yeah."

She's just staring at him, looking amused and a little disbelieving. And that sort of broke the rhythm.

He rolls his eyes a little. "Tony's not the only one who watches movies. I saw Bull Durham."

She doesn't look like she believes that at all. "You watched a baseball movie?"

"I watched a sex movie with some baseball in it. I was fourteen and one thing my Dad was happy to let me do was watch sports type stuff. So, I grabbed a bunch of movies that were at least somewhat sports oriented, and only watched the good parts."

Abby laughs.

"So, yeah, I haven't actually done it before, but since I watched the good parts about nineteen million times, I've got a pretty good idea of how a garter belt works."

He mimics the finger motion involved in releasing a stocking, and Abby grins, she traces her fingers up her leg slowly, and then flicks off the clasps, and eases the stocking down her leg.

He watches her ease them off, eyes devouring the supple curves of her legs. "What I wouldn't give to be able to kiss you right now."

"I know. Have you here, wrap my legs around you and kiss you deep and slow."

"Oh yeah." He's stroking himself, hand moving faster, watching her fingers slip along her thigh, then gently easing over her pussy. He can see the shine on her fingers as she lifts them to her mouth and sucks them. "I'd suck you just like that. Lick my juices off your cock. Taste me on you, lean down and pass it back to you."

He inhales slowly. "So hard, God, you've got me so hard. I'd slide down you, kissing and licking your chest and breasts and stomach, then settle between your legs, slip your lips apart and kiss you right. Soft and deep with lots of tongue and my fingers inside you and my tongue on your clit, stroking and sucking, and making you writhe against the bed and push your hips up against me for more."

He's watching her pussy, her fingers circling her clit, one finger slipping inside her.

"God, baby, that is so hot. You're all pink and wet and taste so good and feel even better, and God, I'd fuck you so hard right now, make you come over and over, make your whole body shake and clench around me."

She adds a second and third finger pumping in and out and he groans, then shifts his computer so she's got a better view of his hand flying over his dick. He stops for a second, spitting on his hand, wanting this to be wet and slick, like her body would be, and then he thrusts slow and hard, keeping his hand tight, rippling the fingers a little, eyes glued to her pussy on the screen.

She slows her own hand, matching his pace, long deliberate strokes, the kind that pull every last second of sensation out of each motion, and he sees her body go tight and then start to twitch against her fingers, and hears her moaning, high pitched and breathy, and with his right hand he manages to shove the computer over a little because cumming on the keyboard would just be a mess, and with a few more strokes he's squirting into his hand, feeling the tingles through his whole body.

He rested for a few seconds, enjoying the last few soft pulses, and then grabbed for his towel and wiped up, then re-angled the computer so she could see all of him.

"I've missed you."

"I know. Miss you, too."

It was well after midnight by that point, and between the long days and the orgasm he's beat.

"I'm gonna fall asleep in a minute. I love you."

"Love you too, baby. See you tomorrow, I hope."

"Me too."

And with that he flicked off Skype, moved just enough to get under the blankets, and crashed into a deep sleep.

* * *

4:45 his phone was buzzing. It took a few tries before he managed to grab it. "McGee."

"Dogs are awake."

He rubbed his eyes, feeling like he was mired in sleep. "Get on it. We'll be there soon." He sent a text to everyone's phones, letting them know it was wake up time, and then rolled out of bed, cranked the shower to icy, and hopped in, hoping the shock of it would actually get his eyes open.

It worked, a little. Mostly it just made sure he was cold, cranky, and sleepy.

* * *

Gibbs was sitting on his bed, holding a coffee when he got out of the shower. How that man functioned on no sleep was something Tim was never going to understand.

"Dogs up?"

Tim nodded, taking the coffee, drinking down a third of it before it occurred to him he was naked. _Screw it._ He headed to his go bag and started to get dressed, slipping on his boxers. Not like Gibbs never saw a naked guy before. Granted, when they room together Tim changes in the bathroom, but he's too tired for modest and doesn't have the energy for scuttling about hiding his privates, plus Gibbs would probably see that as a sign of weakness, and just, well, _screw it._ Guy walks into your room without waiting for you to answer, he deserves what he gets.

"I thought you had three of them."

Tim's so sleepy he has no idea what that means.

"Three what?"

"Tatts. You told DiNozzo you got one on your ass."

"Oh. Yeah." He rubs his eyes again. "Didn't want to explain the one I really got." He touches the code on his left delt. "Didn't think Tony'd ever see the real one." He sucks down more of the coffee and pulls on his shirt. It's his last clean one.

"Think they've got laundry here?"

Gibbs shrugs. "Hopefully won't need it."

"Amen."

"So, what's the plan?"

"Let me get my map." He opens his laptop and boots it up. "Okay. I'll put Ziva and her guys with the dog team. Have them on hand if the dogs find him. Tony and his guys'll take the south west corner. Your team is going to go through the warehouses in the north east corner. I'll tag along with Ziva's guys today, keep sending updates on what we've got, move you guys around as needed."

"Sounds good."

* * *

At six thirty, while he was sucking down his third coffee of the morning, he felt his phone buzz.

_Any chance of you getting home tonight? _From Abby.

_It's not impossible, why?_

_Temp dropped this morning._

He just stared at the phone for a moment before it clicked that she was ovulating, then fervently cursed any and every fate that had him stuck in this godforsaken chunk of mosquito infested hell instead of home with her.

"McGee?" Ziva's voice, really startled. She's staring at him like she never imagined hearing, let alone had ever heard, any of those words come out of his mouth, and it occurred to him that she probably hasn't.

"I'm fine."

She just stared at him for a moment, but then backed off.

Tim wrote. _If my luck holds, that just ensured we're not home for at least two days._

* * *

And hold it did. There's only so fast the dogs can go, and August in North Carolina means rain. Lots of rain.

They got five hours of tracking Toph, found out that he'd been watching their perimeter and from the looks of it, trying to find a way to get through it, and then the heavens opened up in a massive downpour, thunder, lightning, and gallons of rain sluicing down, washing away everything.

* * *

They were hunting through the kitchens when an idea occurred to Tim. He flashed Gibbs a text: _Dress whites, you only get one set, right?_

A minute later he got back _Normally. You can buy more if you want them, but most Marines only get one set._

_Good._

He checked his map, and yeah, the warehouse that held the uniforms was on the outside of the perimeter.

Five minutes later, General Phelp, commander of Lejeune, was staring at him like he was insane. "You want me to order what?"

"Everyone into their dress whites."

"No. They're for formal use only. It'd be an insult to the uniform to wear them for regular duty."

There's a wall in Tim's mind. It keeps the part of him that wants to yell at people for being idiots, his own fears, most of his anger, and a lot of his other emotions nicely contained and allows him to function in a pretty efficient manner without making too many enemies.

And sitting there, in the commander's office, looking at a guy who could be a clone of his dad, a clone of his dad staring at him with that exact same you're-an-idiot look his dad used to give him, placing greater value on a _uniform_ than on catching a killer, let alone the fact that getting home fast has never, ever mattered more to him than it does right now, and that wall broke into a thousand pieces.

Phelp had been sitting down, had invited him to sit, too, so he had, but as that wall cracked he stood up, placed both of his hands onto Phelp's desk, and leaned so he was towering over the man. His voice went low and stayed soft, but there was an edge to it that very rarely made its way out of him. He made sure to stare Phelp in the eyes for a good thirty seconds before he said, "Look, asshole, the uniform doesn't care. You can't insult it because it's a piece fucking fabric. I've got a killer to catch, and if you order your guys into white, my guy'll finally start to stick out. He's been using the fact that he looks like every other fucking Marine in this god-forsaken hell hole to his advantage and it ends now. If I tell you I want them all to paint themselves blue, you will get on that fucking phone and order it because as soon as Toph decided to hide here, SecNav put me in charge of this base. Now go and do it!"

Phelp just stared at Tim, and in retrospect Tim figured he must have been looking pretty scary, and it was possible one of his hands ended up on his gun, because when Phelp picked up his phone and gave the order, Tim stood all the way up, noticing that both of his hands weren't on the desk anymore.

Tim listened, nodded, and calmly said, "Thank you. Let them know that if anyone can't find their whites to contact us immediately."

* * *

He got a phone call from Vance an hour later. "SecNav put you in charge of Lejeune?"

He really doesn't want to do this, so he sounds pretty testy as he says, "You put me in charge, he put you in charge, it's close enough."

"I put you in charge of the logistics of the hunt."

He's gritting his teeth, very temped to tell Vance off, too, but Vance actually is his boss, and more than that, he's someone who's earned his respect. "You want me to find Toph?"

"Yes."

"Then why are you wasting my time?"

And suddenly he just knew that Vance was smiling. "Because hearing you cussed out the commander of the largest Marine base in the US was the best laugh I've had all week, and I would have happily paid money to see it."

"Thank you, sir."

"Go get him, McGee, and if Phelps gives you any more shit… Well, actually, it looks like you already know what to do."

"On it, sir."

* * *

Shifting everyone to whites helped. It meant that Toph couldn't move. The civilians were off base, so he couldn't just toss on a pair a of jeans and a t-shirt. Anyone in drab immediately got grabbed for questioning, so he couldn't show himself in the uniform he had been wearing.

Finally, they weren't hunting a moving target.

But helped and captured weren't the same thing at all.

At five thirty he sent a text back to Abby. _Not gonna happen. Even if we grabbed him right now, I'm still eight hours away._

_Damn it_

_Yeah._

_Still working?_

_Yeah._

_We'll talk later then?_

_Yeah._

He closed up the text window and grabbed some food, unable to even begin to try and put into words how disappointed he was because it doesn't matter how good you are at Skype sex, you can't make a baby with it.

* * *

Gibbs walked with him back toward his room, he waited for Tim to open the door and followed him in.

"You do know we aren't rooming together anymore? Right?"

Gibbs sat on the edge of the bed. "Ziva said you got a text, started cursing, and then wouldn't tell her what was wrong. You okay?"

Tim sat down next to him. "Yeah, I'm okay."

Gibbs sent him the _cut the bullshit _look. "Vance told me you cussed out Phelp, too."

Tim flashed him a somewhat self-depreciating and amused look. "I'm thirty-six, Boss, and work for the Navy. My dad's a sailor. I grew up on Navy bases. It's not like I've never heard, let alone said, the word fuck before."

Gibbs smiled dryly. "Not where any of us have been able to hear you."

Tim laughed a little at that. "I suppose not."

"What's wrong? Everything okay at home? Something happen with the house?"

That was a good guess. It just happened to be wrong.

See, Tim had thought that if he walked into a bank and said, "I've got a 65% down payment," that they would have been very happy to see him and offered him a loan for the rest on really great terms. But, as the rather unhappy and embarrassed banker explained to him, if you've been the victim of identity theft five times, and if you paid off your student loans within two years, bought your car outright, and then paid all your other bills every month on time, therefore never carrying a balance, you ended up with a credit score of 542. Then he got to sit there and listen to said very embarrassed banker explaining how _unfortunate_ it was that he didn't have what banks were traditionally looking for in the way of a credit history and 17% interest was the best he could possibly do for him.

So, for once, he and Abby not being legally married actually came in handy. Sure, the terms for the mortgage in just her name weren't ideal either, but they were way better than in his name. And it wasn't like they were going to hold the mortgage very long. He was hoping to have it paid off shortly after he got the last of the advance money for Most Precious. Still, it took a little while to get it worked out, but after three weeks they had the financing set up, and at least as of now, things were going smoothly and they were just waiting to get the inspection report back. Which was supposed to happen today or tomorrow, but since Abby hadn't mentioned it, tomorrow looks like the correct answer.

Tim sighed. "Not the house. Last I heard that was fine." He wasn't sure if what the problem actually is is something he wants to talk to Gibbs about. Palmer, sure. He could see talking with Palmer about this, but Gibbs… He thought of some of the things Gibbs told him about Shannon, and that gets him talking.

"The only thing that's not okay about home is that I'm not there. We're trying to get pregnant, and today was ovulation day."

A smile was tugging at the corners of Gibbs' lips, and Tim was fairly sure that's him being happy about them working on having a baby, not laughing at him for being away from home.

"It's not the end of the world or anything, but, it's... just really disappointing."

Gibbs nodded and squeezed Tim's shoulder.

"Been waiting forever to start a family and we're finally getting on it and… I'm here, so there's another month of waiting."

Gibbs nodded again.

"And, I get it's not a big deal, not really, but, she's forty, Boss, almost forty-one, and we don't have all the time in the world."

"Nope."

"So, yeah, just, frustrated and disappointed. And less than four hours of sleep doesn't help. And Phelp was being a dick, standing there talking about insulting a uniform. And I just watched him for a second and felt that little thing inside me that kept me from killing Tony all those years break. And when it did, it hit me, I'm not under his command, and I can say whatever I want to that man. He doesn't like it; I don't care!"

Gibbs laughed. "Good. Less time caring about what other people think is the way to happiness."

"If you say so. Look, it's late. I want to talk to Abby some, and I've got to see if they have a washing machine and dryer anywhere around here. See you in the morning?"

"Sure."

Gibbs got up, and when he was standing at the door, Tim said, "The coffee this morning was really nice; I appreciated it, but tomorrow, wait for me to answer the door first. I don't feel like giving you anymore peep shows."

"Don't flatter yourself, you aren't that pretty."

"Abby thinks I am."

Gibbs smiled and left.

* * *

10:47 the next morning Toph gave himself up.

And Tim considered it the height of self-control that he didn't beat the guy into a pulp for not doing it twenty-four hours earlier.

Though two weeks later, when Abby's period showed up, he was awfully sorry he didn't.


	100. Thom E Gemcity Is Getting Married

A huge, and Tim knew from experience, very heavy box, was waiting at their door when they got home from work on September 10th.

"What is that?" Abby asked, looking at it.

Tim grinned at her, even though the return address was hidden on the underside of the box, he knew what it was. "Half my favorite part of being an author, half debilitating finger cramps."

"So, it's not a wedding present?"

"Oh." Huh. That was a possibility. "I was thinking it's the finished copies of The Traitor Within. They send me a few hundred of them to sign."

"A few hundred fit in that box?"

"No, more boxes are coming. But you're right, this might be a present."

She opened the door, and he bent down to pick it up, and grunted as he lifted it. "It's the books. No one is getting us a present this heavy."

He carried it into the house, put the box on the kitchen counter, and grabbed his knife to slit through the tape.

He's smiling as he does it. This is familiar enough that he's not shaking the way he was the first time he slit open a box filled with copies of a book he wrote, but he's still excited. Still feeling the rush that goes with knowing something he made, something he lived and breathed and made real is about to go live and get shared with the rest of the world.

Abby's standing right next to him, feeling the excitement of this moment. And sure, she's seen all of the mock ups for the cover art, and the more or less put together version that was the proof copy, as well as the ARCs that went out to the reviewers, but this is the first time either of them get to see the real, finished, going on the market October 15th, people have already pre-ordered it on Amazon version, and she is bouncing a little at it.

Like all of the other Deep Six books the cover is a sort of menacing indistinct blur of mostly red on white. (This one looks sort of like a heart.) It feels nicely solid in his hand (this is the first hard bound copy he's seen). And it smells the way a new book should, paper, glue, slight tinge of ink.

One of the perks of selling a lot of copies of your book is that your publishers are often willing to cater to some eccentricities on the part of a successful author. And Tim's already got a reputation of being eccentric with a capital E. But, with handing in actual electronic documents, instead of making them deal with his typewritten pages, he got some wiggle room for a new bit of oddness.

Specifically, though he's been through several edits, a proof copy, a mock up, and an ARC, up until this point the dedication page has never been in any of the copies that were sent to his home.

Sure, he wrote it and had it done the same time as the rest of the book, but he wanted it to be a surprise for Abby.

Deep Six had been dedicated to Penny, because she was, without a doubt, the most supportive person in his world when it came to his writing. She'd been his first reader for years when he was younger, always happy to lend her eyes to his work, and so he didn't have to think about it when it came time to write the dedication for Deep Six.

Sarah got Black Rock. She'd spent hours helping him beat the plot into submission when his editor handed the first draft back to him and said, "Great characters, the stuff with Tommy and Liza is wonderful. But you don't have a mystery here, and your readers, they want a mystery."

Gibbs got Foreign and Domestic. Well, in a 'round about sort of way. He wasn't going to flat out write: For Leroy Jethro Gibbs, because without you I don't have a story. And he wasn't about to refer to Gibbs as his muse. That would be, well, weird, and not in a good way, but in a get headslapped sort of way. So Foreign and Domestic got dedicated to all Marines past and present, and if he was only really thinking of one Marine when he wrote that, oh well.

He watches Abby flip through the pages of Traitor Within. She's read it already, so it's not like what she's seeing is a shocking new plot twist or anything.

"Why so many copies?" she asks, still flipping through.

"So I can sign them. Collectors like them. They send me a five hundred copies, I sign them, and they ship them to the bigger bookstores. They'd like me to do actual book signings and tours, but, not going to happen."

"Why not?"

"First off, I'm supposed to pay for a tour out of pocket. Theoretically that's part of what my advance covers. Secondly, I'm a big enough name that the books sell, but not so big that people will line up around the block for me, so a book signing means sitting in a book store, just waiting around for people to show up and chat with me. I've got better ways to spend the day. Third, the only way the tour makes sense is if I push everything into a few weeks around when the book comes out, and spending three weeks around release time traveling everywhere isn't my idea of fun, let alone what I want to do with my vacation time. I don't like planes to begin with and hopping between three cities in one day, no. Finally," he opens a copy to the dust jacket and the picture of him on it, "the more people associate this," and it's certainly him, just a very well photographed version of him from 2010, "with Thom E. Gemcity, the more I can be Tim in real life."

She's nodding like that makes sense, and he sees her flip to the front of the book, looking at the title page. Then she flips to the next page and sees it. He feels a wide smile creep across his face as her eyes scan over the dedication page.

For Abby:

The sun who lights my world.

The home at the end of my journey.

The life that makes mine whole.

"Tim?"

"Yeah?"

And she was in his arms, kissing him, book forgotten on the counter.

* * *

He thought of something an hour later, as they were making dinner. "Do you want to be in my biography?"

"Huh?"

"I've got a Wikipedia page, and Twitter, and Facebook, and a website, and all of them have some sort of personal section about me. I keep it pretty short because..." And he let that trail off, they both remember exactly how insane his fans can be. "Right now mine has that I'm a federal agent, that I support Wounded Warrior Program, and I'm the older brother of Sarah McGee." Sarah's first novel had come out two years ago, and the fourth one was due out in two months. She was a lot faster at getting them written than he was, but she was also writing young adult paranormal romances full time.

Abby's eyebrows were high as she stopped cutting up celery and looked at him. "You have a wiki page?"

"Thom does." He pulled two pork chops out of the fridge. "You didn't know that?"

"No."

"Come on." They head for his office, dinner on hold. He turned on his computer and brought up the page. It was a fairly standard bio. There was the traditional shot of him, same one from the cover of his books, along with one of him with his sister in the personal section. "My publisher set it up originally, but every month or so I check it and change it if need be. So, do you want to be on here?"

"Can I pick the picture of us?"

"Sure, if you want. Or no picture."

"Oh no. If I'm going to be on this thing, there has to be a picture."

"You want me to update all of my stuff."

"Sure."

He watched her mess with her phone. She was staring at something. "You tweet?"

He looked over her shoulder and sees she's just followed Thom on twitter.

"Rarely. There's a guy at the publisher's office who does most of it. Usually when I'm doing it it's something like this." He took out his phone, and headed for the kitchen, quickly signed the first book, snapped a shot of it open on top of the other books in the box, and fired off _1 down 499 to go._

He heard her laugh from the office, and went back to join her.

"So how would you add me to your wiki page?" she asked, looking up at him.

"In 2013 Gemcity got engaged to forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. Something like that?"

"Kind of bland."

He shrugged. "It's a Wikipedia article. They're all sort of bland. What would you like?"

"How about stick a spoiler in there for Most Precious about McGregor and Amy getting married?"

He shook his head. "Can't. Not allowed to leak things like that."

"Really?"

"Yep. That's part of my contract."

She didn't look like she believed that. Not that he was lying to her, but that someone at his publisher would think to put that on paper and get him to sign it. "Your contract is that specific?"

"Yeah, it is. I've got a list of things I can 'let slip' and major plot points aren't on the list."

"Huh. Then, sure, kind of bland is good."

He shifted over to the edit page, and started typing. She flipped through the pictures of them on her phone. "How about this one?"

It was a shot from the last Shabbos at Ziva's. She was sitting on his lap, arm around his shoulder, and he had his hand on her back. They were both laughing at the story Ducky was telling, and Breena had snapped the pic of them.

"That's a good one."

She sent it to him and he uploaded it.

* * *

The next morning he had seventeen congratulatory emails from different fans in his Gemcity account. And one somewhat cranky one from the publicist who worked for his publisher and was assigned to him, wanting a formal engagement picture, as well as a blurb about the wedding, and once they got married a wedding picture so they could do a press release and take care of this properly.

He was staring at his computer screen, wishing this hadn't just bit him in the ass that hard, and hoping Abby wasn't going to be annoyed with this.

Tim headed into the kitchen, saw Abby eating her breakfast and said, "So… um… yeah…"

She's staring at him, looking nervous. "What, new delay on the house?"

"Oh. No. At least not that I know of." The current owners hadn't expected to sell so fast, and now they were scrambling around trying to find a new place of their own. They'd ended up with the closing set for the middle of October, which they didn't much like, but at least it made getting their apartment sub-letted easier. "Nothing like that. I hope. No. I got an email from my publicist—"

"You have a publicist?"

"I share her with about twenty other authors."

"Really?" Once again, Abby looked surprised. It occurred to him that he might keep the author part of his life a little too quiet if even she had no idea of how involved it was.

"Yeah, really. Jennifer Manz. She's in charge of making people want to buy my books, and keeping me in the news whenever a new one comes out. We're not exactly good friends because she wants to splash me all over the press, and I want to hide. Anyway, she'd like a formal engagement portrait of us to send out in the press release."

Abby just stared at him.

"Apparently it's pretty standard that if you're going to let the world know you're engaged to then make sure _everyone_ knows. So, she wants to do a release, and would also like some wedding pictures and something about how we met and..." And he let it trail off because she looked like she was about to burst out laughing.

"It's not a big deal, Tim."

"Really?"

"Really. I like the idea of an engagement portrait."

"It's not too invasive?"

"I don't mind if the entire world knows we're getting married."

"You sure? This is like, blurb in People Magazine, public."

She grinned at him.

He smiled. "Cool."


	101. The First Dance

Some things about planning the Sciuto-McGee wedding weren't so easy.

One thing Tim had really appreciated about Jimmy and Breena's reception was that they did the first dance right away, so everyone could just party as they saw fit, instead of having to wait around for it.

So, they had decided to do that for their wedding as well.

And promptly ran into a brick wall.

Both Abby and Tim liked music. She was more into it than he was, but he liked it quite well. Basically her tastes were narrower, but deeper, and his were broader but less intensive. The issue was that the circle of music she liked and the one he liked, there was just not much overlap.

And to make matters worse, they couldn't find a good song that had it all. It needed great lyrics and you had to be able to dance to it. Abby had tons of great music from a dancing perspective. Not so great on the whole love you forever and ever front. Tim had music with fabulous lyrics, especially for a Halloween wedding; he's almost sure The Airborne Toxic Event somehow crept into their life and wrote The Graveyard by the House for them, but you can't dance to it. Likewise, Mumford and Sons The Ghosts That We Knew, and the 'bury my heart next to yours' line seemed especially appropriate for a Halloween wedding, but once again, you can't dance to it.

For about three minutes, he thought Heaven by Bryan Adams (and yes, that's how far back in his music collection he went) might do it. Great lyrics, perfect lyrics, okay, maybe not the best dancing beat, but it would work. She listened to the first thirty seconds and said, "Eighties anthem rock?"

"Our second first date was an eighties cover bands."

She gave him a I can't believe we are so desperate for music you came up with this look. "Yeah, but, it's not dance music. This is stand in an auditorium waving around a lighter music." Which she demonstrated, sans lighter.

So they went looking for something else.

They even had a great second dance song. It was too raunchy for a first dance, but You Shook Me All Night Long was a perfect second dance. Somewhat naughty lyrics, good beat, fast enough to move to, yes, perfect second dance song.

But that first dance... That was a killer.

They'd been sitting on the floor of the living room, listening to their different MP3s, playing songs for each other, when Tim finally found something that might, sort of, kind of, if you squinted a little, work.

"How about this?"

He stood up, held out his hand to her, and she stood as well. He settled his right hand on the small of her back, hit the play button, and laced his left hand with her right.

Guitar, drums, fairly steady and slow beat. Okay, that worked. A basic box step melded into the music easily.

"What is this?" Abby asked.

"You'll recognize in a second."

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes.

She grinned at him, knowing what this was.

"Little sappy?" she asked.

"We're getting married; we're allowed to be a little sappy. Besides, this is the original version, not the remakes. How sappy can Classic British Invasion Rock be?" He pulled her tighter to him, his face near her ear, and sang along with a low voice,

Your love is all around me, and so the feeling grows.

It's written on the wind, Violins in the classic wedding march add to the guitar and drums. It's everywhere I go

So if you really love me—

"What's this if stuff?" Abby said.

"Okay, it's not perfect, but keep listening." He spun her away from him, and then pulled her close again as the beat shifted. "At least this one has decent lyrics and we can dance to it." He kissed her and then went back to singing along when the lyrics picked back up.

You know I love you, I always will, my mind's made up by the way that I feel

There's no beginning, there'll be no end, 'cause on my love, you can depend.

A few more beats sans lyrics, and they were moving pretty comfortably together to this.

I see your face before me, as I lay on my bed.

I kinda get to thinkin' of all the things you've said

You gave your promise to me, and I gave mine to you

I need someone beside me

In everything I do.

Abby was smiling at him, maybe this song would work. Maybe the hunt was done.

Once again the guitar tripped over beats in an almost percussion-like manner, and it was very clear these were the same guys who did Wild Thing. As those notes sounded, he dipped her low, and pulled her back up to continue the rather slow box step.

The second half of the song was exactly the same as the first half, just repeated. So no new territory there.

It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go

So if you really love me, come on and let it show

Come on and let it show...

She kissed him as the music winded down. "Not loving the end. All in all pretty good, and if we can't find anything else, then, yeah, I like it."

"You think we're going to find something else? We've been at this for two months, and the DJ wants a song list soon."

"True. Okay, play it again."

He did, and they danced through it, figuring out where their feet went and how to slip along to the music.

She was nodding by the end of it, and he took a minute to set it up with You Shook Me All Night Long right after.

"How is it we're going to end up with a classic rock wedding?" she asked as he dipped her low at the end of Love Is All Around.

He shrugged, pulling her back up, hands settling on her low back, starting to move to You Shook Me. "It's halfway between Jazz and Industrial?"

She grinned. They've already danced to You Shook Me many times, so her body knows where to go when, and his does, as well. This was a lot sexier, a lot more playful than Love Is All Around, and both of them liked it.

He kissed her, and sang against her lips, ...was the best damn woman I had ever seen... then winked at her and grinned as she pulled back and shimmied a little in front of him.

He held the beat for a few lines, and then ran his hands down her sides to end up on her hips and pull them against his. She told me to come, but I was already there.

Her head dropped back and they both happily danced to it, fast, and for the most part not too close. But when they got to the chorus, she pulled him close, her right leg sliding up his left, and sang along, You shook me all night long. His hand dragged down her arm as she stepped back, looking at him with sex in her eyes when Workin' double time on the seduction line hit, then he pulled her back into him, curling her into his arms, her back against his chest, adding a grind, and a kiss to her shoulder and neck. She pressed his hands to her hips and shimmied against him.

Both of them were smiling when that song ended.

She turned back around to face him. "Okay, yeah, that works."

"Good. So we can tell the DJ what the first two songs are?"

"I think so."

He pulled out his phone and fired off a text. "So we don't change our minds."

She laughed. "So, now what?"

"We've got envelopes to address."

"I'm starting to think your idea of just sending out emails was a good plan."

"Too late for that. We bought the invitations, might as well use them."

And so, music picked out, they settled down to address envelopes.

* * *

A/N: I've got links to the music up on my blog. characters are my heroin dot blogspot dot com /2013 /05 /shards -to- whole -ncis -fanfiction _26 dot html


	102. October 23, 2014

The plan wasn't to have move in day and ovulation day be the same day.

That just happened to be the way it worked out.

After Abby's temp dropped in August, three weeks after her last Depo shot, they were both pretty pleased at the idea this might be easy. But all of September came and went and nothing happened. And okay, yeah, that's not wildly unusual. It can take a while for all the artificial hormones to work their way out, and for a woman's body to get back on a regular cycle.

But Tim would be lying if he said he wasn't at least starting to get concerned about the fact that Abby's forty now, and this is probably just the Depo wearing off, but it might not be, and if it's not then they've got some big things to talk about.

But he wasn't thinking about that as he brushed his teeth that morning.

Mostly, he was thinking about how the moving truck was going to be there in less than an hour, and that he's really hoping this is their last move for a good long time because he's not a huge fan of moving, while trying to remember if they had already packed up the coffee maker, hoping they hadn't because some coffee would be good, and then Abby skipped in, thermometer in hand and said, "Ninety-seven four."

And that killed all thoughts about coffee and moving. (Okay, almost all thoughts, he's still aware of the fact that the movers are going to get there at eight, so there's something of a hard deadline here.)

The rational part of his mind knew that sperm could live in a woman's body for up to seven days, so the rational part knew that, since they've had sex every day this week, they they've got this covered. In fact, it was entirely possible one of them had already hooked up with the egg and baby McSciuto could already be in the works.

But the rational part of his mind also ran off about two, maybe three tenths of a second after what she said registered. And the Yes-Sex-Now-Make-Baby-NOW! part took over.

He was already wearing his boxers and jeans, but before he'd even gotten his toothbrush put back he was unbuttoning them, and the look of pure sex Abby was shooting him as she carefully put the thermometer down confirmed that she was on the same page he was with this.

And like their first time? Second first time? Like after their 80's cover band date, he doesn't have any very clear memories of the sex. No good chronology, he couldn't tell you how many times they kissed, or if she took his jeans off or if he did, but the way it felt, that burning sense of all-consuming NOW; the overwhelming importance of each thrust, and the immense awareness of life, of her heart beating and his and both of them possibly making another heartbeat with this; the vivid feeling that this was love made real, a verb sliding into a noun, and that sex had never, ever mattered more to him than it does now; that he remembers.

And he remembers after, sitting on the bathroom floor, her in his lap, his face pressed against her shoulder and throat, her chin against his temple as they both rested quietly, breath slowing, calming down. She was holding his hand, and he had his other hand on the small of her back. He traced his fingers up her spine, settling his index, middle, and ring finger on her throat against where her pulse throbbed, and felt each exhale of her breath against his ear, and he just felt lost in how very alive they both are, and how important and amazing that is.

Sure, a quickie in the bathroom wasn't the most "romantic" sex ever. But he's not going to complain, because that was definitely some of the most intense sex they've ever had.

After a few more minutes they broke apart, cleaned up, and got ready for the day, because in ten minutes the movers were going to be there and the real world doesn't stop existing, and there's always stuff you've got to do. Like loading boxes into your car, and making sure all your furniture ended up in the right rooms, and packing up the last-minute items. No matter what else you're doing, that doesn't go away.

Granted, every time he saw her over the course of the day, he'd look at her and grin, and she'd grin back, and a few times they both just broke into happy giggles, causing the movers to look at them like they were crazy. Which made both of them giggle even more.

Sometimes happy is too big to stay inside. Sometimes it has to burst out, and right now, watching Abby unpacking the plates, looking up at him with a big happy grin, it came out in giggles instead of tears.

* * *

They would have liked to have been able to move in a bit before October 23rd. By that point, the wedding was barely a week away and moving in and getting ready for all of that was more than they'd been hoping to do all at once.

But between the late closing, and the fact that the inside of the house had needed some work the first week they had it was spent painting, refinishing the floors, and installing new carpets, so the 23rd was the earliest they could move in.

It's true that having real movers mean that this time it was a lot faster than the last time they moved. But faster and fast aren't the same thing, and it was a very full day.

So they were both pretty tired at the end of that day. But not so tired that, when he spooned up behind her, she didn't rub up against him, and not so tired that he didn't take advantage of it. And yeah, it was pretty relaxed and lazy, slow burn sex, not firework sex.

It wasn't as intense as the first round, but that extra edge of life and the idea of real sex was still there, still setting his blood on fire, pulling extra depth and pleasure out of each touch, each move.

And after, as they spooned together, ready to spend their first night in what would hopefully be the home they shared for the rest of their lives, instead of his hand settling against her chest, it pressed gently against her belly. She squeezed it. Neither of them said anything, but they were both thinking, wondering.

Her breathing was slowing down, edging toward the easy in out of sleep, and some sort of niggly little thing was chewing on the back of his mind, not letting him rest. It took a minute, but he finally got it.

"Abby."

"Mmm…"

"Happy anniversary."

She laughed a little, kissed his hand, and snuggled in closer to him. "Best two years of my life."

"Yeah, mine too."

She pressed his hand back to her belly. "Next one'll be better."

He kissed her shoulder. "Yeah."


	103. Vows and Rings

October 26th

He's sitting at his desk in his office, pad of paper in front of him, good pen in hand, and a nice blend of tea that Ducky gave them as a house warming present in a cup next to him.

They moved in four days ago, and this is the only room in the house that's completely unpacked and ready to go.

Two desks, one with his computer set up, the other, which he's sitting at now, with his typewriter. His bookshelves didn't take too long to put back up again, and filling them with books and computer gear took him about an hour.

His workbench ended up exiled to the garage, which he doesn't mind. It's kind of nice to have a separate space for his different sets of tools.

The rest of the house is in various levels of unpacked, but this one room is done.

And the reason it's done is staring him in the face. A piece of almost blank paper sitting in front of him. It's been almost blank for a long time. And as part of procrastinating on getting it less blank, he got his entire office set up.

He's got one word written on the top of it: Vows.

Writing your own vows is a brilliant idea, until you've got to actually sit your ass down, put pen to paper, and come up with the little bastards. Then it's suddenly every bad dream you've ever had about public speaking wrapped around having to bare your heart to everyone you know.

To make matters worse (and this was something Tim never anticipated biting him in the ass) he's a writer, so his vows should be smooth, elegant, polished. They should be profound and beautiful, haunting even.

And he'd rather shoot himself in the foot than end up sounding like Palmer, saccharine sweet words that puddle into a mush of Hallmark Card romantic goo.

Even if Abby is the wind beneath his wings (which is true), he sure as hell isn't about to say it.

Not like that.

So this almost blank piece of paper has been sitting in front of him for months, taunting him with something worse than writer's block. This is fear that the words won't do the job, that they can't be strong enough, beautiful enough. Failure, writ large, about the only phrases that have ever mattered this much to him.

He's got pages of free writing from this, (mostly variations on the theme: I won't be my dad, and here's why.) and even a few bits he likes, but something that works, a draft he can shape further, nope.

He stares at the paper some more, knows inspiration isn't going to strike right this second and wanders into their bedroom to do some more unpacking.

* * *

October 27th

While choosing the wedding rings is not the sole province of the groom, fetching them once they are ready and keeping custody of them until the wedding is.

So, it's lunchtime and he's on an errand, time to fetch wedding rings.

With Palmer and Ziva, who are both claiming that it is their duty to go with him and oversee the pickup operation so they may report back to Abby on the suitability of said rings. (She's in court today. They've already testified; he's scheduled for tomorrow, so he can't go see her at the courthouse today, while they can.)

Because, you know, the entire six hours between lunch time and both of them getting home for dinner is just too damn long to wait to see them.

The jeweler, not the same one who did the engagement ring, spends a moment looking for his order, and then places a small white box in front of him.

Tim opens it and picks up the rings. Ziva and Palmer looking over his shoulders.

They're wide for wedding bands, but they're supposed to be wide, it makes it easier to see the pattern on them.

He doesn't remember how he found mokume gane metalwork for wedding rings. But he does know that once he saw it that that was right for them. The technique, laminating layers of metal together, and then folding them over and over to produce a finished product that looks like it has a wood grain has been around forever in Japan, but is fairly new in the States.

Their rings are black titanium, steel, and platinum. Mostly black with whorls of gray and brilliant silvery metal.

Ziva and Palmer are standing next to him, looking at them, saying nothing. Tim slips his out, and puts it on, for a second he's just checking to see if it fits properly, but that fades into the feeling of having it on his hand.

He rolls it around on his ring finger, feeling how right it is there.

"Ziva, can I borrow your hand for a moment?" Ziva's smaller than Abby is, but her right index finger is pretty close to the same size as Abby's ring finger.

He puts it on her finger. "Feel good? Fit nicely?"

"Yes, McGee. It's good."

He takes it back off and slips it onto his ring finger, though it only goes to the top of his second knuckle. He smiles looking at them.

Putting Abby's back into the little box wasn't too hard, but he found himself feeling reluctant to take his off.

Palmer sees it and says, "Saturday. Not too much longer."

"Nope."

* * *

The rings are sitting on top of the piece of paper, right next to what is still the only word he's got written on it.

Vows:

He plays with them a little. Slipping hers onto the tip of his index finger, and spinning his. It glints gently as the light hits the little whorls of platinum.

The rings were easy to get made. Black titanium, because they both like it. Because the tats and the wrist cuff are black. Because her engagement ring is black. Because black is them, even if he doesn't wear as much of it as she does. Steel because it's hard and strong and useful. Platinum, because it's bright, shiny, beautiful and rare.

He knows there's a language of flowers (even if he doesn't know how to speak it) and thinks there should be a language of metals. Gold, for classicists and tradition. (Ziva and Tony's rings, even though they haven't picked them out yet, will be gold. He's sure of that.) Silver for purity. Steel for strength. There's something in him that really likes the symbolism of steel in a wedding ring, because love should be like steel, strong, hard, able to withstand what comes at it, and a good foundation to build on. Titianium for... the future and forever. Platinum for light made liquid and then frozen into form.

"Hey." Abby pokes her head into his office.

"Hi. You just get home?" He waves her in. He's noticed she won't go in his office without express permission, and though he's told her she's always welcome, he also really appreciates that there's a space in their home that's his and his alone.

"Yeah." She comes in as he slides his chair a bit further away from the desk. She sits between his legs and holds out her hand. He puts them in her palm. She slips hers on her ring finger and just stares at it.

He squeezes her, and her head comes to rest on his shoulder.

For a while they just sit there, cuddling. He's got one arm around her back, but his free hand finds hers, and touches her ring finger, feeling the cool metal on warm skin.

"Put mine on me?"

She looks up and grins at him, wide, happy, eyes bright and shining with tears.

"Are you crying?"

"A little."

He looks a little disturbed by that. "Good crying?" Crying Abby is a pretty rare thing. Crying happy Abby is… well best of his knowledge this is the first time it's happened. Part of him wonders, hopes this is the first sign of a pregnancy. And part of his is aware of the fact that this whole getting married thing is pretty damn emotional, too. He knows he's been feeling everything really intensely these last few days, and doesn't think it's going to go away until after the wedding, so there's no reason she wouldn't be in a similar boat.

"Oh yeah!" She slips it onto his finger, holding his left hand in hers, looking at the matching rings. "Jimmy and Ziva told me they were beautiful, and I couldn't wait to get home and see them, try them on, feel it on my finger, see it on yours, and there it is and it just feels so good! I mean, look at them, on us, wedding rings. We're getting married on Saturday!"

He kisses her. "Yeah. We are."

She plays with the ring on her finger. "I don't want to take it off."

"Me either."

"Ziva said you needed a crow bar to get it off to take it home."

He smiles wryly. "It wasn't quite that bad. Still... What do you say? Go out, elope tonight? Take it off for an hour and then let me put it back on you for the rest of your life?"

She shakes her head, fast. "Oh no. Everyone is getting dressed up and partying with us."

"We can still do the party."

"You're just trying to get out of writing your vows." She laughs gently, looking at the remarkably blank piece of paper in front of them.

"It'd probably be easier if it was just the two of us and a Justice of the Peace."

"No performance anxiety?"

"Something like that. If I get up there and say something stupid, Tony will beat me with it until the day I die."

"You aren't going to say anything stupid."

He shrugs. He's fairly sure he's got a well-nigh infinite capacity for embarrassing himself. "How about yours? If I could read them..."

"Uh uh." She kisses him quickly and smiles. "You get to hear them when we get married. They're a surprise." He sighs. "You'll like them."

"I'll love them."

She looks at him seriously for a moment, and then takes off her ring and his. "We already live together. We've been having sex for years. And maybe..." she rests his hand on her belly. "I'd like something to be... I don't know, different, about getting married. Something new. Something you haven't seen me do over and over. I want to stand up there and give you something you'll remember for the rest of your life. I want this to be more than just a fancy party."

He pets her face and nods, understanding that.

* * *

A/N: Ring pics up on the blog. characters are my heroin dot blogspot dot com /2013 /05 /shards -to -whole -ncis -fanfiction _28 dot html


	104. October 30, 2014

"Earth to Tim!"

He jerked a little at the sound of Jimmy's voice, sloshing his coffee.

"You're a million miles away. Thinking about the wedding?" T-minus two days, and his last day at work until the middle of November.

No, not really. Thinking about Abby, wondering if the pregnancy test would turn positive, wondering about a baby, flashing between images of a little girl and an little boy.

He shrugged a little, said, "That, too," and returned to stirring the cream into his coffee.

Jimmy nudged him over a few inches so he could get to the creamer and began to doctor his own coffee.

"Nervous?"

"Eh." He shrugged at that, too. No, he's not nervous about getting married. His vows are another subject all together, though.

"Vows still killing you?"

Tim turned to lean back against the counter in the break room and face Jimmy. "Yeah. I'm a writer. I'm a good writer. People pay me money to put words on paper and express thoughts. I've got a book's worth of poetry I've written for her. And yeah, some of it's dumb, but none of it is bad, and she loves all of it. This shouldn't be so hard."

"So, what's the problem?" The only issue Jimmy had had with his own vows was cutting them down. He could have happily gone on for a good half hour, but Ducky had, after reading them, gently suggested that he needed to cut at least half and better yet seventy-five percent of what he had, because no one, not even Breena, wanted to stand there for _that_ long.

"How do you wrap up a life in, at most, a minute?"

"You're not writing a eulogy, Tim. This is a wedding. You live the life, and your vows are just the broad outline of how you're going to do it. Stick the pen in your hand, think about how much you love her, and let yourself go."

Tim blinked slowly, remembering Palmer's vows, and sighed. "Jimmy, I say this as someone who loves and respects you immensely, but you have no filter between your brain and your mouth, and you really needed one for your vows. You went on for six minutes, and yes, Breena loved them, but everyone else was silently begging you to get done. And if I take your advice and just let go, I will sound like a moron, blathering away Hallmark Card style in trite, and likely rhyming, verse, and it will be a disaster."

Palmer raised one eyebrow and took a sip of his coffee, then said dryly, "If the reports I got from Ziva are right, you have no idea what my vows were because you were only paying attention to Abby."

"I caught enough of them. What was the thing about butterfly kisses?"

"She loved that!"

Tim nodded, that was true. Sure, he hadn't been paying much attention to Jimmy or Breena, but even he noticed the fact that Breena had been staring at Jimmy, completely enraptured as he said his vows. "Yes, she did. Everyone else cringed, but she loved it."

Jimmy smiled smugly. "And when it comes to your vows, that's all that matters."

Tim sighed, fairly sure he can't make himself ignore everyone else at his wedding the way Jimmy did. "When we're alone together, I may indeed, actually, probably will let go and blather away and be happy as a clam about it, but not with forty other people watching."

"Okay, _Tony_."

Tim rolled his eyes and drank some of his coffee. "Don't start that."

"Stop acting like him if you don't want me to rag on you. He's too cool to say what he really feels. Fine. News flash, you aren't and never have been. I'm not either. And no one expects either of us to be cool about getting married. We're allowed to be soft and romantic and sappy about it."

Tim thought about that for a moment; that actually was a pretty good point. "You might be. You go off blathering away and what happens? Nothing. Ducky shrugs a little at you, and starts talking about the history of wedding vows. I've got to work with Gibbs and Tony and Ziva."

"Come on, what's the worst that happens? He calls you McRomeo for a few days, and Gibbs slaps you upside the head during the reception? Like that's a problem."

That was probably true, but when it came down to it, it was an excuse. "It's a problem for me, okay? I want it to be beautiful and meaningful, and…" he looked around for a moment, trying to find the right word for this, "real. It's too important to be mushy and sappy. And it's got to deal with the fact that there's darkness here as well as light. That it's not all going to be good times, and I'm still going to be there. That this is me, laying my life at her feet, giving her my everything, and building a life with her forever."

Jimmy smiled, warmly. "That sounded just fine to me."

Tim snorted. "I'm not marrying you."

"Thank God." Palmer sipped his coffee. "You said, 'too.' What else has you standing in front of the creamer just staring at it for two minutes?"

Tim thinks about it for a second, but decides Abby won't mind him talking to Palmer about this. "Did you and Breena plan to get pregnant?"

Jimmy grinned at him. "Oh." He laughed a little. "Yeah, I remember this. The only time in your life where you're sitting there thinking, 'Come on period, show up faster!'"

"More like, 'Don't show up at all,' but yeah, that's the basic idea."

"You know they have tests now that'll tell you a week before her period's due."

"Yep, got one sitting in the bathroom already."

Jimmy laughed. "How long have you been trying?"

"Six days."

He rolled his eyes and slapped Tim on the shoulder. "Please. Took four shots before we got Molly."

"You two start right after you got kidnapped?"

"Month before actually, but that certainly added some… intensity to it."

Tim grinned. "Intensity, there's a good word for it. If she hadn't been on Depo last summer, we'd probably have a kid by now."

"It's what we're built for, you know? Make more life, and nothing sharpens that need more than almost dying. We didn't even get into the house the first time. We were in the car, in the garage, and nothing mattered more than that at that second."

"Yeah, I remember that. Hell, _you_ almost getting killed got both of us thinking along those lines…" He remembered the frantic up against the wall sex when they got home that night. Smirked a little at the idea that Palmer was doing pretty much the exact same thing at the exact same time, and then pulled his mind away from sex to what sex does. "I can feel it every time I'm not really thinking about something else. Is she pregnant? Did we just make a baby? Am I about to be a dad?"

Jimmy squeezed his shoulder. "I've done this twice now, and I can say getting surprised is a lot easier to deal with than planning it out." For Labor Day, Team Gibbs was on call, so they had gotten together at Jimmy's for a cook out. No calls came in, and shortly after everyone had sat down for dinner, Jimmy and Breena announced they were expecting a second baby in May.

"New baby was an accident?"

"Not exactly. Not really trying yet, but not really doing anything to prevent it either. But since we weren't charting, there wasn't any sort of waiting with baited breath, trying to make the calendar go faster sort of thing."

"Okay." Tim gets that and could see how that would be appealing. And really, they have sex often enough that it's not like there's any shot of missing an ovulation unless he gets sent away again, in which case it wouldn't matter.

Maybe, occasionally, there's something to be said for low tech.


	105. High Tech

Of course, when you are waiting with baited breath, there's also something to be said for high tech.

Friday morning, Halloween, Abby said, "Why would they wrap them up like this?" She pulled at the plastic wrap on the box, trying to find an edge to slip her fingernail into.

"Here." Tim took it from her, whipped the knife he kept on his keychain out, and slit through the plastic and the box under it. He gave it a yank, harder than he intended, he's a bit excited, ripping it open and flipping two six-inch-long wands and an instruction/information pamphlet out.

He bent down to pick one of the wands off the bathroom floor. They only need one right now, and it's not like this is rocket science, so he's not feeling a need to read the directions.

"Rule number nine always comes in handy," Tim said as he cut the pregnancy test out of its protective covering. He handed it to Abby, and stood there waiting, expectantly.

She looked at it in her hand, and then stared at him. "Shoo, McGee."

"What?"

"I'm not peeing in front of you. Out of the bathroom, now." She gestured to the door.

He walked out, shut the door, and stood back to it, staring blankly at the boxes in front of him. Night before last they got the bedroom fully unpacked, but the boxes were still piled in the corner. "I've seen you do almost everything else."

"And this is one thing that gets to stay in the mystery category."

"You've seen me pee."

"And when you take the pregnancy test, that'll matter."

"Fine."

A very slow minute goes by. "Are you going to keep calling me McGee?" She didn't do it nearly as much as she used to, but, especially at work, he's still McGee.

"Huh?"

"As of tomorrow, it'll be your name, too."

"Hadn't thought about that."

He heard the toilet flush, and waited another minute for her to open the door.

She did, and he looked expectantly at her. "Well?"

"I haven't looked. I wanted us to see it together." He saw it sitting on the back of the toilet, readout side down. He took two steps and reached for it, but she grabbed his hand before he could pick it up. "It might not be able to tell, yet. The box said as early as seven days before your period. Today is the first day it could possibly tell."

"If it's negative, we can do this tomorrow."

"Or the day after. We might be busy tomorrow."

He smiled. "Yeah, we might." But he was sure that no matter how busy they might be tomorrow, if need be, they'll find the time to do this again. "You ready to see?"

"Yeah, I am."

He flipped it over, and felt electric joy arcing through him, making his knees go weak, and a dopey grin spread across his face. She was squeezing his hand hard as they just stared at the tiny gray on gray readout: Pregnant.


	106. Errands

No one tells you that part of a wedding is running ten million errands the day before.

And no one tells you how hard it is to give a damn about them when you found out you're going to have a baby less than an hour earlier.

What he'd like to be doing is sitting at home with Abby, probably making love, definitely basking in the we're-pregnant glow.

What he is doing is running back and forth to different airports. Sarah moved to New York three years ago, and she and her boyfriend Glenn were coming into Dulles at ten. His mom and Ben were coming into Regan at one. Luca's family was coming into Dulles at three. It's his job to get them all picked up, to the Adam's House, and settled in in time for the rehearsal tonight.

And in between that, he's also got pick up his suit. Sure, he had to put his reception suit together on his own, that's not the sort of thing he could rent, but the formal morning suit he's wearing for the ceremony, that he could and did rent, so he's got to go get it.

Which means he's spending a lot of time in Jimmy's car (Tim switched cars with him, since neither he nor Abby has a car with a backseat.) enjoying the glorious joy that is DC traffic, and mostly just stuck in a sort of blank headspace where the only thing really going on is the immense shock of BABY.

It feels really weird. There's this huge, everything in his life is about to go sideways immensity to it, but there's also this sort of gentle blankness, too.

Part of him wants to jump around and tell everyone. Even strangers. He's chatting mindlessly with the guy waiting next to him at the luggage carousel that's been assigned to Sarah's flight, doing the usual, glad-the-flight's-on-time, who-are-you-waiting-for thing, and the guy next to him congratulated him on the wedding, but he's feeling this desire to just talk.

He keeps it in check. With the exception of Gibbs, they aren't planning to tell anyone until after they get back from their honeymoon. Won't tell most of the world until the first trimester is over. Because if something happens… He quickly shuts that train of thought down. Just the idea of it makes him feel sick to his stomach, and he really doesn't need that right now.

A crowd of people are heading toward the carousel, and it takes a moment, but he spots Sarah and waves. She waves back and a minute later he's hugging her, and a few seconds after that she's introducing Glenn, who Tim probably should have paid more attention to because this is the first of the boyfriends he's been introduced to, but he's kind of distracted.

Fortunately, as the groom, everyone expects him to be distracted.

As he was driving them towards the Adam's House, Sarah mentions that they're moving back to DC shortly after New Year's, and that does get Tim to start paying attention to this Glenn guy, because obviously his sister must be serious about him if she's not only living with him but moving to a different city with him.

Apparently he's giving Glenn a pretty good version of his interrogation technique because Sarah sends Glenn to the front desk to get their key cards, pulls Tim aside, glares at him and says, "What are you doing?"

This is where it occurred to him that, just possibly, he hadn't been making polite, introductory small talk. "Talking?"

"Like hell, you're acting like Dad."

Tim stared at Sarah, one eyebrow high, looking exasperated. "Please. Like The Admiral would even notice you've got a boyfriend, let alone take any interest in the guy."

"He met Glenn when he was in New York for Fleet Week and likes him."

That yanked the metaphorical rug out from under Tim's feet. "What?"

Sarah calmly said, "He visits when he's in New York."

"When did that start happening?"

"When didn't it happen? He always drops by when he's within 100 miles."

Tim sighed, shoulders slumping. "Of course he does. And let me guess, he has signed copies of all of your books in his office next to the flags and medals."

Sarah looked a little chagrined at that because the answer is yes, and no, none of Tim's books are there because their father considers his books a waste of time.

Tim gritted his teeth a little and reminded himself that it is not Sarah's fault that their dad is an ass, and that she doesn't owe it to him to cut their dad out of her life, especially since, besides never being around, he's always been nice to her. "And how is he?"

"He's Dad. As long as you don't expect him to be anything other than Dad, he's fine."

"Great." He and Sarah had talked about that before. He's fairly sure Sarah and Penny have as well. If there is one thing he and his dad have in common, it's the fact they both wish the other one was someone else.

"I take it we aren't going to see him tomorrow?"

"Not unless something goes horrifically wrong."

Glenn catches the tail end of that as he heads back with the keys. "What's going horrifically wrong?"

Sarah takes his hand in hers. "Nothing. Just our Dad."

"Is he okay?"

Tim's a little surprised to see that Glenn looks genuinely worried, and his opinion of the guy rises.

"To the best of my knowledge, he's as okay as he ever is. Let's get you settled in. Then we can grab some lunch and go get Mom and Ben."

"That sounds good," Sarah says, and they head up toward their room. "So, tell me about the house? You all moved in now?"

And that got them on a comfortable topic.

* * *

A/N: Just a friendly reminder that this story went way AU during Squall, and John McGee is alive, well, and still being an asshole.


	107. The Rehearsal Dinner

At the rehearsal dinner, Tim noticed something. Contrary to how general demographics worked, he was sitting in a group with three elderly single guys, and only one single woman.

And while it's true that usually only members of the wedding party and out of town guests go to the rehearsal dinner, Penny was in attendance as well, because she wanted some extra time with Tori and Sarah.

And she was getting that extra time, and also, a lot of extra attention.

Which she appeared to be enjoying.

For the most part, Ducky hung back. He'd catch her eye and smile, or wink, but he kept his distance. Tim knew from talking to Penny that though the two of them had hit it off, and gone on a few fairly promising dates, their combined schedules meant that they rarely got to see each other. They went out for drinks, had a pleasant time, made plans to see each other again, and then Ducky caught a case, then she had a lecture in Europe, and he caught another case, then he had a lecture series, then she was teaching a seminar in Georgia, and so forth and so on.

Given the pace of their schedules, they decided to be friends, and Tim decided that he was quite happy to believe that they just liked to get together for a pleasant dinner now and again and nothing else happens.

And if Ducky appears to be in an especially fine mood after the two of them get together, well, Penny is a lovely and brilliant woman, and spending time with her is fun, and Tim absolutely has no interest in knowing anything else on that topic, thank you very much.

Jackson tried a less direct approach, as well. Specifically, he let Senior head in, charm blazing, smile amped to 11, and then came to Penny's 'rescue' a bit later.

Tony was standing next to him, watching Senior chat up Penny, and said, "So, they hit it off and get married, what does that make us? Step-brothers? No… I'd be your uncle, right? Uncle Tony."

"God, that's a horrifying thought." Tim said.

Then Jackson swooped in, drink in each hand, and neatly cut Senior out of the picture as Penny smiled. "Her and Jackson, that'd make Gibbs-"

"Still your boss."

The three of them watched Jackson flirt with Penny, which she handled with a pleasant smile, grace, charm, and a fairly definite brush off. Tim looked across the party and noticed Ducky appeared smugly pleased.

"You think those two…" Tony asked.

"They're friends," Tim answered, probably a bit quicker than was strictly necessary.

"Uh huh," Tony said. Then Ziva caught his attention, waving him over to her and Breena and Abby.

He and Gibbs watched the party for a little while, and then Gibbs said, quietly, "Can we talk in private?"

"Sure." Tim looked around, wondering what Gibbs would want to say to him without an audience, hoping this isn't the hurt my daughter and I'll kill you slowly and messily conversation, because, honestly he thought they were past that, and noticed that there was a small area behind the bar where they could talk without too much attention being paid to them.

He nodded in the direction of the bar. Gibbs saw it. And they headed over.

Tim waited for Gibbs to start, and eventually, he did.

"Tim, I know Abby's family would normally pay for this, or at least help out, and..." he slid a check into Tim's hand.

Tim unfolded it, and it took a moment before his mind could make the numbers on it make sense, finally, ten thousand dollars registered.

His first response, which he acted on, was to wrap Gibbs in a massive hug. Gibbs handled that by going stiff, looking confused, but then he sort of melted into it and hugged Tim back. Tim found himself thinking of this as the Godfather exception to the no hugging guys rule. On his daughter's wedding day, (okay, rehearsal dinner day) the Godfather will grant hugs.

Tim stepped back and said, "This is the sweetest thing anyone has done for us, thank you. Really, thank you. But... look... I've got to be honest, we aren't hurting for cash."

"Weddings are expensive." By which Gibbs meant this particular wedding looked God-awful expensive because Tim and Abby aren't pulling any punches on this. From what he can tell Abby's ceremony dress (because she's got one for the ceremony and one for the reception. Something about dancing in hoop skirts and corsets...) was more expensive than his last two weddings combined. "You just closed on a house, and I know what you make."

Tim nodded. "You're right. This is expensive. And look, this isn't a I'm-too-proud-to-accept-your-help sort of thing. If we needed it, I'd take it in a heartbeat. But I don't want you thinking we'd do something we couldn't pay for. We're not going into debt for this."

Gibbs didn't quite believe that, but he was also confused because he could tell Tim wasn't lying. Apparently it showed on his face.

Tim read the look, and pulled Gibbs a bit further away from the rest of the wedding party. "Yeah, my pay grade isn't too impressive. I know that. But... okay, I don't like to talk about this. Abby knows, but I'd rather no one else did... So, anyway, the advance for The Traitor Within was three hundred thousand dollars. Right before we closed, I got the first draft of Most Precious in, so they sent me the first third of that advance." Tim smiled a little. "We're good on cash."

Gibbs stared at him, disbelieving. He did it for a full minute, which felt like forever to Tim, and made him want to squirm. Finally Gibbs said, "They pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to write about me?"

Tim shrugged. "All of us really. Foreign and Domestic was mostly about Ziva. Palmer had a lot of action in The Traitor Within. Most Precious is mainly Abby and me."

"Why?"

Tim resisted the urge to say, "I'm a good writer," and came up with, "People like these stories. They like reading about us. You've got fans. Lots of them. Some of them even write further adventures for you. If you were to go online and search Deep Six fan fiction, you'd find over fifteen thousand stories."

Gibbs looked somewhere between intrigued and horrified. "What do they write about?"

Tim thought for a moment about what they actually write about, mainly Gibbs and Tony screwing each other silly, and decided that he was willing to break, or at least seriously bend, his don't lie to Gibbs rule on this one.

"New adventures, new romances…"

Gibbs just stared at him, waiting for more.

"Many of them like you with Ziva," he said it fast, voice low.

Intrigued vanished and utterly horrified replaced it. Tim decided not mentioning the stories with him and Tony was a good idea.

"They write about me and Ziva?"

Tim felt the blush creeping up his cheeks. "Yeah, together, like romantic and... explicit."

"Yeah, I got that, Tim." He shook his head, and Tim decided to get back to the topic at hand.

"So, look, this is amazingly generous, and if you mean it as a gift, we will happily take it, but if it's about helping us out, it's still amazingly generous, but well, I know what you make, too, and I don't want you putting yourself out for us." He was holding the check, looking at it, trying to figure out a way to get out of this with some sort of grace.

Gibbs took Tim's hand and closed it around the check. Then he hugged Tim, who was utterly surprised by this.

Abby bopped over a second later, looking amused and slightly annoyed. "You told him, didn't you?"

"No, Abby." Tim shook his head a little. "I swear, I'm leaving it to you."

"Then why are you guys hiding way over here, and why is he hugging you?" she asked Tim, but she was looking at Gibbs.

Gibbs shrugged, smiled a little, and pulled Abby in for a hug. He had an arm around her when he asked, "What do you think Tim told me?"

She looked at Gibbs, beamed at him, unadulterated rays of Abby joy bathing him, and said, much more calmly than both he and Tim were anticipating, "We found out this morning. We're pregnant!"

"And you tell me you don't need this?" Gibbs eyed the check in Tim's hand as a huge grin spread across his face, the sort Tim had never seen on Gibbs before, but if he had to guess, he'd call it pure happiness.

"We don't, Boss, but there's nothing in the world we want more than a crib made by you."

Gibbs hugged both of them, kissing Abby on the cheek. Abby cried. Tim pretended he wasn't crying. And Gibbs pretended he didn't notice as he held both of them close.

* * *

A/N: Okay, I couldn't resist the meta. ;) And, well, I'm kind of excited about these next chapters, too, so they'll be coming a bit faster than usual.


	108. The Bachelor Party

"Tony, that's a strip club," Tim says as Tony stops the car in front of a large square building with neon images of naked women on it.

Tony looks at Gibbs, who just shrugs. Then he turns toward Tim. "Of course it's a strip club. I know you may be rusty on what a good time looks like, but this is part of it."

"I don't want to go in there!" Palmer says. "I've got a woman a thousand times hotter than anything dancing on that stage, just pregnant enough to have incredible breasts, who I don't have to pay to give me a lap dance so hot it'd be illegal if I wasn't married to her, and who will then have sex with me, really, really, mind-blowingly great sex, after the lap dance. Why would I want to go in there?"

Tony sighs and stares at the ceiling of the car. Trust Palmer to miss the point of this. Then he says to Gibbs, "Do not let either of these two plan my bachelor party."

Gibbs smiles at him.

Tony turns toward the backseat where Tim and Jimmy are sitting and spoke slowly, as if explaining a very simple concept to two especially dull children. "This is a bachelor party. This is supposed to be one last night of drunken debauchery and orgiastic excess before we hand our buddy over to be shackled to one woman for the rest of his life."

Tim gives Tony his dryly amused look. "Tony, I haven't sex with anyone other than Abby in more than three years. You're a bit late on the last night before shackling rescue."

"Four and a half for me." Palmer blushes a little when he hears what he's said and starts to bluster. "Four and a half with Breena, not Abby. Not that I've ever had sex with Abby. I mean, well, there was that one time, but that was years ago, and it doesn't really count if you only do it once, right?"

Tim's eyes almost fell out of his head, he had them open so wide. And then Palmer suddenly loses his embarrassed bluster and just smirks at him, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

"Just kidding. God, you should see the look on your face. That was for the necrophilia thing in your book. I've never had sex with Abby. Some hugs, a few kisses on the cheek, the full-body Rolfing when she was going for her certification in that, and, let me add, that really hurt, and the one blow job in the lab." He sees Tim look like he's going to explode at that and laughs again. "God, Tim, you are so easy. What's with you tonight?"

Gibbs is looking very amused and appears to really approve of what Jimmy is doing.

Tony's staring at Palmer like he's seeing him in an entirely new light. "You're really mean, Jimmy. Remind me not to piss you off."

"Sex with dead people, Tony. Sex with dead people I had to explain to my wife because once she met Tim, she decided she needed to read his books, and Pimmy Jalmer just wasn't quite different enough from my own name to throw her off the track. Just a shame it took this long get an opening like that. Oh and don't worry, Tony, I've got plans for you. One day..." Tony starts to look really disturbed by that, but Jimmy just keeps blithely talking. "Anyway, perfectly hot woman at home, thank you. Not interested in watching skanks gyrate for money. Beer and laser tag?"

Tim just sits there, staring at Palmer, slowly unclenching the fist that had formed without his brain getting involved in the matter in the least, and nods. "Ummm... yeah... ditto on the hot woman at home thing. And for that matter, so do you Tony."

"Actually, none of us have hot women at home right now. Right now we've got hot women off doing whatever it is they do the night before one of them gets married." Jimmy and Tim just stare at him. Tony sighs again. "Fine. We will be models of virtue and forgo the hot women we do not live with, and go off in search of beer and laser tag."

Gibbs finally says something, "What's laser tag?"

"Don't worry, you'll be good at it," Tim answers.

* * *

It hadn't been a ton of beer. Just a decent amount. Enough so they could feel it, not so much Tony couldn't drive, enough to plausibly excuse a somewhat indelicate question.

"So, my married, once married, and soon-to-be married friends, how often do you get laid?"

Tony's expecting pretty straightforward answers, somewhere in the range of two to five times a week. Instead he sees both Tim and Jimmy think about it.

"How are we defining laid?" Tim asks.

Gibbs raises an eyebrow at that, and Tony takes over on responding verbally, "McGee, you're getting married tomorrow, shouldn't you already know that?"

"Like if we do it once, get a nap, and then do it again, do we count that as once or twice?"

"Did you leave bed in between?" Jimmy asks.

"Who says we're in bed?" Tim shoots back.

"Good point." Jimmy nods.

"Why are you getting a nap if you aren't in bed?" Tony asks, realizing he is way out of his depth here. He's also noticing Gibbs doesn't seem to think this conversation is nearly as far out of bounds as he does.

"Sofa's comfy," Tim says and then smirks at Gibbs, who looks a little startled. "But say it's just the basic idea, have sex, sleep, have sex again, is that once or twice?"

"Short nap?" Jimmy asks.

"Does it matter?" Tim responds.

"Probably. Like if we're talking about do it once, go to sleep, wake up the next morning and do it again, that's different from do it once, crash, snooze, and do it again."

Gibbs is nodding, and so is Tim. "True. Call it a short nap, say an hour."

Jimmy appears to be really thinking about this. "I'd say that counts as once. What about oral?"

"I think that should count," Tim says.

"Oral always counts," Gibbs adds with a smile, and all three of them spend a moment just staring at him. "What? You think you're the only guys to notice pussy tastes great? Guess what? That secret got out a long time ago. Even Ducky knows that."

All three of them continue staring at Gibbs for a moment. Then Palmer grins. "Really, I think if we're going to get good numbers here, a straight orgasm count would make more sense."

"Just the ones with her, right?" Tim asks.

"You're still doing yourself?" Jimmy looks curious.

"Not often enough to really change the count, just making sure we know what the rules are."

Palmer's nodding, that, and apparently this whole conversation, seems reasonable to him. Tony's realizing that he's gotten in way over his head here. Those two are analyzing the snot out of this, and Gibbs is sitting back, smirking, and enjoying it.

"And just yours. Not hers. Not everyone," and here Palmer is looking at Tony in a way that's making him wish he had never asked this, "can tell when his girl gets off."

Gibbs just sits there smiling. Laid back, slightly drunk Jimmy is a lot of fun.

"Hey, I can tell," Tony says indignant.

Palmer just nods. "Sure you can."

"Have you met Ziva? Do you think she just moans a little and shivers?"

Jimmy thinks about that for an uncomfortably long time. Tony whacks his shoulder and says, "Mind out of the gutter."

"Just saying, seventy-five percent of women say they fake it at least occasionally, and only ten percent of men think it's happened to them." And once again Palmer just stares at Tony.

"Quit looking at me like that. Go stare at him." Tony nudges Tim.

Palmer looks at Tim, shrugs, and then looks back at Tony again. "Breena read all of Tim's books. And told me about them, read certain bits of them to me. I know he knows what he's doing."

Gibbs starts looking at Tim. Though he wouldn't admit it, he's got signed copies of all of the Gemcity books, and, yes, he's read them. They pretty straight up mysteries. Sure there's some sex, but not a lot, and none of it featured anything he'd consider particularly impressive technique.

"Well I do, too," Tony says.

Palmer's look clearly says, _If you say so, but I don't buy it._

Then Tony notices something, Gibbs is really staring at Tim, so he replays the last few lines of the conversation in his mind and comes up with. "McGee's books are sexy?" Okay, yeah, there had been that scene where "Tommy" and "Liza" had been making out at the end of Deep Six, and that was pretty hot, but he wouldn't have called the book sexy.

Jimmy grins. "Some of them are."

Tim's glaring at Jimmy. After Jimmy had given them the copy of Fifty Shades, Abby had decided Breena and Jimmy might like some of Tim's books, and handed them over.

Jimmy grins back. "Payback's a bitch, Tim. He writes under T.M. Gee as well, and those books are pure smut."

"Hey, they've got plot and character development!"

"Here's the plot: let's get laid. Here's the character development: how many different ways can I get laid? There's a three page long sex scene every four pages in those books starring Abby with every other girl Tim's ever had a hard-on for."

At that, Gibbs starts laughing out loud.

"You write lesbian smut?" Tony asks, disbelieving.

"Not recently. So, why are you asking, Tony?" Tim asks, desperate to get off this topic.

Tony just stares at him for a long time and then says, "Everyone says you get less sex when you get married. I'm curious. You are married, you were married, and you're close enough it doesn't make a difference."

"You're getting married in April. Isn't that the sort of thing you should be asking about before you get engaged?" Tim asks.

"Look, I'm going to marry her, no matter what, I just want a better idea of what happens after."

Jimmy answers, "Getting married was great for sex. Lots and lots of sex. Then she got pregnant. First and third trimesters were awful for sex. Second almost made up for it. And the first four months of a new baby you go back to being best friends with your right hand, which, honestly, you don't mind because you're so tired you can barely breathe, let alone fuck." Palmer takes another drink, and Gibbs nods at him, silently echoing Palmer's sentiments. "Okay, look, honestly, it's like everything else with her. You don't want to be with her twenty-four hours a day seven days a week three hundred and sixty-five days a year. You just don't. So, yeah, there'll be times when you get on each other's nerves, or you're too tired or she is, or you just aren't in the mood for it, or she isn't, and you phone it in to make the other one happy. Even Tim over there, who writes smut and by the way he's grinning looks like he's about to come up with a number so ridiculously high we will all be forced to smack him upside the head and call him a liar, doesn't get laid every single night, or want to."

Tim grins at Tony says, "Forty-two," and flashes his eyebrows at him.

And Palmer did whack him upside the head and said, "That's the meaning of life, the universe, and everything, not how often you get off in a week."

Tim, still grinning, says, "Getting off is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything!"

All four of them laugh at that, and when they quiet down Tim says, "Seven. That's my weekly average. I don't think getting married is going to suddenly change that."

"Yeah, if she likes having sex with you, I don't see why she'd suddenly stop once she got married. It's not like Ziva's doing the whole, use every skill she can to get a man and then treat him as an income stream once she's got him thing," Palmer adds.

"So, what's yours? You asked but didn't tell?" Tim asks.

Tony takes a long drink of his beer. "Depends on the week, but three to five times."

"So, you're doing a sex count and Tim's doing an orgasm count?" Jimmy clarifies.

"Look, I don't know what the two of you do, but for me a sex count or an orgasm count is going to be the same."

Tim nods and looks at Jimmy. "The difference between thirty-six and forty-seven."

Jimmy shakes his head. "Poor Ziva, stuck with an old snot like you. You know, if you ever need a hand, we'll," Palmer gestures at himself and Tim, "be more than willing to help out."

Tony glares at Palmer. "Poor Ziva, huh, well, how about you? You haven't answered."

"Okay, just remember, eight-month-old baby at home, and my wife is eight weeks pregnant so she's exhausted and nauseous a lot of the time. These days the average is about two. Before Molly, the average was closer to ten."

"Ten?" Tony asks. "You are a liar."

"How do you think I'm going to end up with two kids less than a year and a half apart?"

"You suck at birth control?" Tony asks.

Jimmy grins, looking like he was about to fire off something along the lines of Tony should talk, but apparently he caught Tim's frantic DON'T GO THERE look, and just flips Tony off.

"Gibbs?" Jimmy asks.

Gibbs takes a sip of his bourbon. "Which time?"

Good question. Jimmy looks at Tony, since he's the guy who started this.

"Shannon," Tony says.

"Like Tim, seven. But you've got to remember, I was away six months a year."

Tony's got a really perplexed look on his face. "When did you ever have time to do anything else?"

Gibbs smiles. "You spend that long away, you prioritize when you're home."

* * *

Two hours later, when he and Palmer went to get another round, Tim said, "You didn't... with Abby... not really, right?"

Palmer, pretty buzzed, took a minute to figure out what Tim was talking about and shook his head. "Nah. Not saying I didn't try. We've all tried, right? Ducky probably tried. Hell, Gibbs probably tried. But no, never more than friends."

Tim relaxes when he hears that. He understands guys wanting to sleep with Abby. He figures that all of the guys who have worked with Abby have at least tried. Hell, even Dornaget probably tried, not very hard, mind you, but he still probably thought about it once. Or at least wished Abby was a guy.

Still, having to work with someone else who has, that's not something he'd relish.

His woman, with his child inside her. No, that's nothing he wants to share. He thinks about this whole marriage thing, and how it's supposed to be a sign of just that.

He thinks about his vows. The day before he'd come up with something... not terrible. But he doesn't love them, not yet.

They get back to the table and Tim asks, "Can we cut this short? I'd really like to head home."

He can feel Tony's getting ready to tease him, but he doesn't. He just looks at Tim and says, "Sure."

* * *

A/N: I've been waiting since February, when I wrote this chapter to share it with you. And I have to admit, it's one of my all time favorites!


	109. Perspective

His house is dark when he walks in. He flicks on the light, tosses his keys and cell onto the little table near the front door where keys, mail, change, small electronics, and any other bits of whatever get tossed when they come in, and sticks the bucket they'd put the Halloween candy in on the floor under it. He looks at it for a second and wonders if the first kids to their house cleaned it out, and then smiles a little at the idea of how a year from now, he'll be handing out the treats with his three-month-old baby.

Then he shakes his head and gets back to why he came home early.

It's a little after eleven.

He walks into his office and looks at the now considerably less blank piece of paper on his desk and crumples it up.

Start fresh.

A though hits, and he acts on it. He knows he's a little drunk, which is probably a good thing, because he doesn't think he could do this cold sober, but at the same time he's feeling like this is probably where the block is coming from. This is what has to be dealt with before he can get the words to flow the way they should, the way they want to.

So he goes back to that table, grabs his phone and calls Penny.

She sounds sleepy when she answers.

"Tim? Are you okay? Shouldn't you still be out?"

"I'm fine. Just got home. Can you give me Dad's phone number?"

He hears her pause, feels her think about that. Finally she says, "Let me text it to you."

"Thanks."

He gets another beer from the fridge. _Might as well._ He'll be a lot more likely to actually dial those numbers if he's well lubricated. He took a deep drink, and then dialed.

Two rings, and then "Hello?"

"Dad."

"Tim?" His father sounds only mildly surprised by this. Like they talk regularly on say, Tuesdays, and he's calling on a Monday, instead of this being the first time they've talked since the March before last, and the first time he's called in almost three years.

"Hi Dad."

Nothing. And this has always been part of the issue. Barking orders, his dad is fine, just talking, not so much.

Finally. "Is everything all right? Is Sarah okay?"

That's a fairly plausible reason for why he'd call. "Sarah's fine." More quiet. "I'm getting married tomorrow."

"Penny told me."

No congratulations, no why are you calling, just quiet.

"We're having a baby in the summer."

"She's pregnant already?" He can feel the disapproval over the thousands of miles.

"Yeah, Dad. Just found out today."

"Is that all?"

"Married, baby, first call in years, sure that's all." Why was he doing this again? _As a focus. Break the block, let the word free._ "Why did you marry mom?"

"Tim?"

"Obviously, I wasn't there, but Mom was, and Penny was, so I heard how it happened. They've shown me pictures. Traditional Catholic ceremony at the Annapolis chapel. You stood up there, in front of God and everyone who had ever mattered to you, and promised to love my mother until the day you died. Love, honor, cherish, hell, forsaking. Forsaking _all_ others. What did that mean to you? Just not fucking around? Did you even manage that? You were gone three hundred days a year, new port every month. Did you have a woman in each of them?"

"Are you drunk?" His dad sounds like he can't believe Tim would ask any of this.

"A little, but that doesn't answer my question. Why did you marry her? What did it mean to you? Why have kids when it was patently obvious you didn't want them."

"Why do you think I don't want you or your sister?"

Now it was Tim's turn to not say anything. That his dad would ask that has him stupefied. Eventually he said, "Really? You have to ask that? Thirteen out of seventeen birthdays, you missed them. All four of my graduations. Twelve Christmases. I was in a building that blew up two years ago, and you didn't call. Penny called and visited. Mom called. Sarah visited. I know you knew what happened, everyone in the entire Navy knew."

"I had a whole fleet I had to secure."

"Bullshit! Ziva, one of my partners and best friends, her dad ran Mossad, and I don't mean he was one of the higher ups, I mean Eli David, Director of Mossad, within an hour of the bombing had called to see if his daughter was all right and offered the power of his whole organization to help us. He could do that, while running security for the entire country of Israel. But you were so busy with your fleet that you couldn't take five minutes to find out if I was still alive?"

"I checked the casualty report."

Tim takes a deep breath. Of course he'd do that.

"And when you saw my name on it, what the hell did you do?"

His father doesn't say anything to that. He's quiet for a full minute, probably hoping Tim'll change the subject or hang up on him, but Tim doesn't, so he says, "I made sure every ship on my roster was under constant watch, and that every person on those ships was accounted for and accountable."

"Of course." Deal with what you can change and help, ignore everything else.

"You could have called me, Tim."

"I was busy getting stitched up and then actually catching Harper Dearing. You know, making sure that none of your ships or your men got hurt."

"Which is what you should have been doing. Duty comes first."

"Yeah. Duty. What about your duty to us? Seriously, why marry mom if she had no claim on you? Why make vows you knew you wouldn't keep?"

His father doesn't answer. Tim holds the phone, hoping for... he doesn't know. He knows there isn't any answer that will make his relationship with his Dad better, but he hopes there might be one that will help crystalize the nebulous thoughts whirling around in his mind.

Finally his dad says, "I never lied to your mother. She knew the Navy came first, that it would always come first, and when we got married she seemed fine with that. Eventually she changed her mind, or stopped lying to herself, I don't know which. I married her because I wanted someone to come home to when I wasn't at sea. I wanted someone to look forward to my return, but not miss me too much when I was away. I wanted someone to raise my children, and I trusted her to do a good job of it. It was a Catholic ceremony because we're Catholic. We got married because it was 1974 and you didn't just shack up with a woman and have kids with her back then."

Tim closes his eyes and sighs. "You wanted a whore and a nanny."

"You stop that right this second! You do not disrespect your mother!"

"I'm not disrespecting her. I'm disrespecting your idea of her!" His father doesn't say anything to that, either.

Finally Tim says, "Thanks, Dad."

"For what?"

"Perspective."

He puts the phone down, hangs up, grabs his pen, and starts to write. This time the words knew what they needed to do and why, and so they did.


	110. Getting Ready

Saturday Noon:

Gibbs helped Palmer lug what felt like six hundred pounds of wedding apparel into the suite the girls' team had claimed, and then got the hell out of there.

Breena had walked in, taken two minutes, checked out both rooms, and claimed the bedroom as the one "with the good light," and started to get set up for hair and makeup and God alone knew what else. And it made him feel, honestly, a little claustrophobic. Snipers, death squads, terrorists, and drug dealers, bring 'em all on, Gibbs is willing and ready. Three girls doing hair and makeup for a wedding, two of them pregnant, even if one of them is only barely, and Palmer hanging around being a modern, sensitive version of Ducky, and well, _that_ scares Gibbs.

So he volunteered to go get snacks, check on the set up, and check on the guys.

He headed down from the suite and poked a head into the ballroom. It looked the way he supposes it should look. Dance floor, five tables, lots of flowers, unlit candles all over the place, cupcakes over on a table on the far side with even more flowers. He heads over and inspects the cupcakes a little closer. Right after they had picked them out, he ended up with one of the coffee ones on his desk, a present from Tim, and well, he doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but that was awfully tasty, and he was pleased to see a decent number of them were waiting for tonight.

He checked the ballroom off his list.

Go see the church next. It's not exactly between The Adam's House and McGee's but it's close enough. He pulled in, noticed the McGee-Sciuto Wedding signs were easy to spot. Not that there were going to be a ton of guests who were likely to get lost, but still, signs help.

He headed in, and again everything looked right. Basket with pamphlets on the wedding, check. (He knows they're got some other name for them, but it's not coming to mind.) Flowers on the pews, check. He stopped and looked at them a little longer, realizing that yeah, one flower is more or less the same as any other flower to him, but Abby wanted specific flowers, and if he comes back saying they're fine and they're not, he'll be in trouble. He takes a moment to remember what they're supposed to be: white roses with red edges, mixed with a few red ones and a few black ones. Yep, they are. Flowers, check.

Priest, and there he was, at the altar, doing something, waving at Gibbs, check.

He headed over and said hello.

"Everything in order?" Father John asked Gibbs.

"Think so. Just checking up."

Father John smiled. "Getting away from the Bridal party for a few minutes?"

Gibbs laughed. "That, too."

"Well, tell Abby the sisters and I have done right by her. Everything is ready to go on our end."

"Good."

Heading over to the guys was up next. They're at McGee's. Only a twenty minute drive from St. Sebastian's. He'll head over, get any snack orders they may have, and then get everything in one fell swoop.

He pulled up and noticed both Tony and Ducky's cars in addition to Tim's. Looked like Team Groom had managed to assemble on time.

It's a good house: sturdy, well built, large enough you won't always be in each other's way, small enough you can't get lost in it, extra bedrooms for future small people, and a small, tidy yard. He'd call the style, sort of Victorian-ish. Victorian as built by someone who had heard about it, but never seen it.

He walked into Tim and Abby's, noticing they also seem to always keep the door unlocked. Ducky and Tony were sitting in the living room, highlights from the night before's World Series game on the TV, no Tim in sight.

"Tim?"

Ducky nodded toward a closed door. Tim's office. "Timothy is taking a few moments for quiet contemplation."

"Can I go in?"

"Yes. I think he'd appreciate a visit from you, Jethro," Ducky said.

Gibbs knocked and heard, "Yeah?"

He poked his head in and saw Tim sitting at his desk, typewriter pushed to the side, paper in front of him, and from the looks of it, writing away. "Can I come in?"

"Sure, Boss." He was tapping the back of the pen against the page.

Gibbs leaned against the desk, in front of Tim, and looked at the paper. He could see the first two words: For Abby, and decided he doesn't need to know what's on the rest of that page.

"You doing okay, Tim?"

Tim looked up at him and sort of smiled. "Yeah. It's just... you know... big day."

Gibbs smiled back. "Yeah, it is."

Tim stared at him, eyes wide and earnest, looking impossibly young, ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and said, "I became a father yesterday," he half-laughed, half-shook his head, looking entirely like he can't wrap his head around that. "In..." he looked for a clock, "three hours and twenty four minutes, I'll be a husband, and it's all just sort of... big, ya know?"

_The difference between the night before and the day of._ Gibbs remembered that well. "Yeah, Tim. I know."

Tim sighed. "But, yeah, I'm okay. I really am."

Gibbs stared at him. He figured that by now he'd seen every emotion Tim has, and, yeah, he is okay. This is intense and scary for him, but not in a bad way. "Can I suggest something?"

"Sure."

"Tell DiNozzo about the baby before he figures it out for himself and ends up pouting about no one telling him anything."

That made Tim chuckle. "When we get back from the honeymoon. We'll tell him and Ziva and Jimmy and Breena. Then no one else until the second trimester. And he'll crack a joke about me knocking her up on the honeymoon, and I'll smile and say something like 'Not on the honeymoon', and he'll get that disturbed look on his face." Tim took another deep breath, looking slightly to the left and behind Gibbs. "It's real, isn't it?"

"Yeah, Tim, it is."

He closed his eyes and shook his head a little. "I kind of want to jump around," he looked at the pen tapping against the paper, seeming to notice for the first time that he was doing that. "Or jitter like crazy."

"It's normal. Been married four times, felt that way before each wedding."

"No offense, Boss, but I really hope I won't be doing this again."

"I hope you never do, either." Gibbs stood up. "You need anything? I'm going on a snack run."

"Would you read something for me?"

"What?"

"My vows."

Gibbs felt a little uncomfortable about that. Vows aren't his specialty. "You really want me to read them? I don't have a great record with marriage vows."

Tim nodded. "Yeah. I want... Just... If you knew your time with Shannon was going to be short, is this what you would have said to her?" He removed a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it, smoothing it out carefully before handing it over.

Gibbs read, eyes scanning the page quickly, and then, for what felt like a long time he just held the paper, not really seeing it. He remembered his own wedding, feeling so nervous and so happy and having a hard time standing still, and then seeing her walk toward him and how the entire world narrowed down to her, and how right, how amazingly perfect hearing those words come out of her mouth felt. He remembered her smile, and the way she looked up at him as he said his vows.

He touched his ring, and, God, he wished he'd had the sense to say something like what he just read to her, let alone live it with her.

Tim was looking up at him, expectantly. So he nodded. "It's close enough."

"So, they're good."

"Yeah." His voice was a lot rougher than normal as he said that, so he cleared his throat. Time to get into more comfortable territory. "Snacks?"

"Nope, but, if you'd wait a minute or two, I'll finish this, and you can give it to Abby."

"Take your time."

"Thanks, Boss."

"Tim."

"Yeah?"

"You can call me Jethro. Or Gibbs, like Abby does."

Tim nodded. And the next thing Gibbs knew, he had two arms full of Tim hugging him. He was shaking a little, so Gibbs patted his back. "You're okay, Tim."

After a minute, Tim pulled back, but Gibbs still had one hand on his shoulder, steadying him, and Tim seemed to appreciate the contact. Tim wiped his eyes, and said, "Yeah, I am. Really. It's just..."

"Big. I know. Trust me, I know. I remember getting married the first time. I was so nervous I almost threw up, so excited I couldn't stand still. I remember the day Shannon told me she was pregnant. I wanted to run and jump around telling everyone, and I was so scared that..." He let that go because his worst fears for Kelly did come true, and today is supposed to be a happy day. "I can't imagine wrapping both of those things into one day. You're doing fine, really. Just, don't lock your knees when you're up in front of everyone, and make sure you've got a handkerchief in your suit, and you'll be fine."

"What happens if you lock your knees?"

"You pass out mid-vows and feel really stupid when you come to." Gibbs smiled dryly, remembering one of his best buddy's weddings.

"Okay, yeah, thanks... Jethro." It sounded a little awkward, but felt very right. "Let me get this wrapped up, and then..."

"I'll give it to her. What is it?"

Tim smiled a little, looking amused. "Something even Tony would consider romantic."

"Ahhh..." And with that, Gibbs headed out, grabbing the pad he's got in his jeans pocket as well as his pen, and began asking what Ducky and Tony want.

* * *

For Abby: Four Hours To Go

In our living room, there's a small pyramid of boutonnieres in boxes

and our suits are hanging from the bathroom door,

the rings are in my pocket

(I'll give them to Tony after we get changed.)

the shoes are shined.

So, I guess that means this is real.

Tony's trying to talk to me,

but Ducky's pulled him away.

"I think Anthony, that Timothy needs time for quiet contemplation."

I love him so much right now.

I wonder what you're doing.

Time's inching by, moments per second.

And I want to see you.

Funny, huh?

It's been less than two hours since you

vanished into Palmer's van while Breena tutted about seeing each other before the wedding.

Like we need luck when we've got love.

And Palmer saw her before the wedding, and look, two and a half years later,

happy as larks, and a second baby due in the spring.

(Think they'll be surprised when ours shows up in the summer?)

God, I still can't quite wrap my head around that.

Right now, you're probably starting to get ready for our wedding,

and right now, there's a tiny person, the size of a grain of rice

(Okay, smaller, really)

that's you and me,

growing inside you.

Blows my mind.

Abby McGee

That's blowing my mind, too.

Feels so good.

Maybe it's some sort of weird possessive kink,

but I love the idea of marking you with my name.

Maybe it's just a Y chromosome thing,

but right now, you with my name

my child—

God, Abby!

Can't even begin to turn that feeling into words.

Gibbs is here.

I can hear him talking to Ducky.

Back again.

He popped in, wanted to know if I was okay.

Top of the world, Boss!

Getting married today!

Became a father yesterday!

Good day!

I think he's worried I'm about to freak out and star hyperventilating.

Or maybe he just remembers what this feels like,

and how hard it is to hold it in.

(Okay, I might have cried on him

a little.)

Anyway, he's getting ready to go see you.

So I'll wrap this, and give it to him to give to you.

3:17 now.

Love you, Mrs. McGee.

* * *

Saturday: 1:30

Gibbs headed back to the hotel rooms the girls had claimed, and found himself in the middle of an impromptu make-over party.

The female McGees, (well, McGee, Allister, and Langston) had joined Team Bride, and were enjoying the pre-wedding fun.

Tori and Sarah were cooing over the dresses, and flowers, showing off their own costumes. Penny and Palmer were talking about something science-y. And Breena appeared to be in charge of the whole thing, directing traffic while setting Ziva's hair in curlers.

Abby looked up at him as soon as he came in and smiled at him. Everyone was being pretty loud, and she had some of her music going, so the chance of being heard was pretty slim. He signed to her, _Got a present for you._

_Really?_

_From Tim._

She smiled and headed over to him. He passed off the envelope while unloading a bag filled with snacks. He figured he had everything covered: salty, sweet, hot, vegetable, chocolate, and crunchy. It'd been a while since he'd fed a room filled with women, especially pregnant ones, but like riding a bike, it came back pretty easy.

He also had, as per his instructions from Abby, two super big CafPows, each with a half-caff, half-decaf mix.

He'd been a little surprised when she asked for that, back when Shannon was pregnant caffeine wasn't on the forbidden list, hell, cigarettes were barely on the forbidden list. But she had asked, so he provided, and she looked awfully happy to be getting at least some caffeine into her system.

"Doing better?" he asked as she sucked down a long slurp, a look akin to ecstasy on her face.

"Oh, God, yes. Quitting this is going to kill me."

Gibbs smiled. "You'll make it."

She nodded, put the CafPow down, and headed to find a quiet corner to read Tim's note. And with this party, quiet corner didn't seem to really be an option, because two seconds after she opened it, Sarah was by her side, asking about it.

She said something, shooed Sarah off, and sat down to read, her eyes going soft and a warm smile spreading across her face. Then she folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket.

"Okay, Ziva, you're done for the time being. Abby, you're up next," Breena had spoken, so Abby headed over to the chair in front of the mirror.

Gibbs drifted over to Palmer and Penny, who appeared to be doing the least girly thing in this room, but he watched as Breena did something that put red streaks into Abby's hair.

Penny offered her hand and he shook it. "Have you met Tori, yet?"

"Yes, last night, briefly. Tim introduced us." They had talked for a few minutes at the rehearsal before Gibbs got called in to do his part.

Penny nodded and then looked at Gibbs for a long moment. "You're calling him Tim now?"

Gibbs smiled.

"Good. He needs more male friends." Though Gibbs caught that what she meant was she was very pleased to see him step into the long vacant father role for Tim.

Jimmy added, "There's Gibbs and I, and two more of them over at Tim's."

"Good, that's really good." She thought about that. "Two more? Is Ducky over there?"

"Yeah. He and Tony are standing up with Tim."

Penny smiled.

* * *

Saturday 2:45

"You know, this isn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be," Tony says, standing in front of the mirror in Tim and Abby's room.

"Did you think Abby and I would pick something that made you look like a dork?"

Tony doesn't answer that, he just looks at Tim in the mirror, and grins, then goes back to messing with his hair.

Tim's honestly a little surprised at how well Tony was doing with this. Not that he'd think Tony would look bad in Steampunk, sure Tim's not particularly interested in men as objects of beauty, but he's spent more than enough time watching women react to Tony to know that he's objectively attractive. So he didn't think Tony would look bad in a black suit, high cut crimson vest, squared off collar, white dress shirt, and black cravat, he just didn't think Tony would look so comfortable in it.

Tony looked at himself in the mirror, fussing with his cravat. "Why couldn't you have just done a tux like everyone else?"

"Because I want to be able to tell my wedding pictures from yours at a glance."

"Ha ha."

"You look fine." Tim finished righting his gloves. For the ceremony, he'd gone for the full on morning suit. The coat was dove gray, trousers charcoal with a dove pinstripe, and he finished the look off with a crimson waistcoat and charcoal ascot. "Scoot over." Tim looked himself over in the mirror. From his spats to his tie pin he looked good. He looked ready. "Got the rings?"

"Just like the last seven times you asked, I've got the rings. They're in my right breast pocket." He pulled them out and showed Tim. "See, not going to lose the rings."

"Good." Tim opened his boutonniere, and began to pin on the red tipped white rose.

"So, last chance to back out. We gonna run?"

"What?" Tim cannot believe Tony would say that.

"Wedding's in less than two hours, my tank's full of gas, and I can have us to Philadelphia before they notice we're missing. This is our last chance to get out of here. We running?"

Tim stared at Tony in horrified stupefaction. "You're my best man, it's your job to nail my ass to the ground if I try to run."

Tony winked at him. "You're ready."

Tim rolled his eyes, and threw the box with Tony's boutonniere in it at him.

Gibbs came in a moment later, while Tim was fussing with his hair. He'd let it grow out a bit, and was in the process of slicking it back. Nothing looked less steampunk than very short hair.

Tony looked at Gibbs. It was less than an hour and a half to wedding time, and Gibbs was still in his usual off work jeans, t-shirt, and USMC hoodie. "Okay, I know you told us you were going to keep what you were wearing a secret, and I know McGee said we didn't need to be completely formal, but I didn't think you'd go this casual."

He shot Tony his, 'very funny' look. "You two ready?"

"Once Marty McFly gets done with his time travel hair, we'll head off."

"You got the rings?"

"Why do you all assume I'm going to lose the rings? They're right" he pulled them out of his pocket, "here."

"Good."

Ducky came out of the bathroom, resplendent in kilted glory. Gibbs' eyes went wide. "That's one hell of a look, Duck."

Ducky adjusted his sporran slightly. "A morning suit with kilt is the traditional formal Scottish wedding attire. The Mallard tartan has been worn proudly through four hundred years of Mallard weddings. Why my mother..." And off Ducky went on the history of weddings, family tartans, honeymoons, and love in general. Tim didn't pay much attention to his words, though he found the gentle burr of lightly Scottish accented noise soothing. He wasn't nervous, buzzing with excitement, yes. He wanted to pace, or maybe go for a quick jog, something to burn off the energy. But not nervous. Not anymore. He'd watched Gibbs read the vows, and if they choked him up, they were ready to go.

Gibbs caught his eye and smiled at him. A look that said, 'I know how you're feeling, and it's normal.'

"DiNozzo, Ziva gave this to me, wanted you to have it."

Gibbs handed Tony a small, rectangular, white box. Tony took it and just looked at it. "What is it?"

"How would I know? I'm just on delivery service today. And Tim, whatever you wrote for Abby, it was a big hit. I'm supposed to give you a kiss in return—"

"Not necessary."

"Didn't think you'd want it." Gibbs checked the clock. "An hour twelve 'til showtime. I'm gonna go meet back up with the girls. See you at the church."

Tony opened the box and grinned, then he pulled out a pair of red sunglasses with small, round lenses. He pushed his hair back a little, and slipped them on.

"Oh my!" Ducky grabbed his camera. "We must have pictures of this." He arranged Tim and Tony together and began snapping away.

* * *

Saturday 2:55

"I have never been more glad to live in the present than I am now," Ziva said as Jimmy pulled on her corset strings. "Why are we wearing corsets?"

"Realism Ziva. The dresses won't look right if you aren't properly laced into them."

Okay, sure she didn't have to be wearing a dress with a corset. In fact, with the exception of Abby, who was already laced into hers, and currently in the other room, having Breena work on her makeup, no one else was wearing a real corset. And Ziva wasn't planning on wearing this for very long, just for the ceremony. See, the thing she didn't much like admitting was how, well, pretty all of this lacy, fluffy girly stuff was. And she really wanted to wear some of that pretty. Just for a little while, at least. So like Abby, she had a ceremony dress and a reception costume, happily letting both halves of herself play.

"I can't breathe in this." Jimmy let the strings out a bit. "Jimmy, how did you get the job of ladies' maid? Isn't that supposed to be something another woman does?"

"Usually," he said as he tied the strings. "But Breena's doing Abby's hair and makeup, and I've got more upper body strength than any of you."

"Are you sure about that?" Ziva asked.

"I can bench 180."

Ziva looked over her shoulder at Jimmy, shocked. "Why can you do that?"

"I move corpses around for a living. There's no magic fairy that moves them from the ground to the gurney and from the gurney to the table and the table to the cooler. That's mostly me and that takes strength."

"Okay, you have more upper body strength."

"So, as man of honor, I'm on corset lacing and dress lugging duty. Now stay still, I've got to finish getting this tied."

When Ziva looked in the mirror, she had to admit the effect looked amazing, looked as good as she had hoped it would. Her posture was perfect, and her torso was shaped into a perfect hourglass. It felt like crap, and all she wanted to do was slouch, but it _looked_ fabulous. She couldn't wait to see Tony react to this, couldn't wait to see him react to the reception costume, too. And in order to get to enjoy his reaction in full, both outfits had been kept top secret.

"Okay, petticoat next." Jimmy held it open, and she stepped into it. She could tie it herself and did so while he got the hoop ready.

Of course, liking the idea of how this looked and coming face to face with all seventy layers of clothing was a somewhat different thing. "You had to suggest Steampunk."

Jimmy smiled. "Steampunk is a lot of fun. Have you seen what Breena's gonna be wearing?"

Ziva nodded. Breena hadn't gotten dressed yet, since she was on makeup and hair duty and she didn't want to risk getting anything spilled on her dress, but Ziva and Abby had been there for her last fitting, so they had seen that she had gone for a long flow of silk, asymmetrically falling from her right shoulder to just above her knees, color bleeding from white to crimson with every shade of pink in between, cinched tight (ish, she's two months pregnant after all) with a black corset. A crimson choker, black stockings, and crimson ankle boots finished a look more or less designed to make Jimmy swallow his tongue when he saw it.

"At least I won't be in this too long." For the reception, Ziva had gone for a long black leather coat, fawn colored leggings, black boots, a crimson blouse, and black leather vest, holster slung low on her hips, tied down gun fighter style (she had asked Gibbs for help with the costume) and a replica Colt.

"Not too long. Okay, let's get this set." He tied the hoops around her waist and then added the bustle. "Shirtwaist next."

"Did they really use so many buttons? There has to be thirty of them."

"If it's going to be properly tight, and you live in a world that doesn't have elastic, you end up with lots of buttons. I can help if you want."

"I can button my own shirt."

And Ziva did, until she realized the four buttons at each wrist. As Palmer was closing the last button, Ziva realized there was absolutely no way she'd be able to do up her own shoes.

"I think shoe buttoner just got added to your to-do list, Jimmy."

"Not a problem. I've got the little hook they used to make that easier."

"They had special hooks for buttoning shoes?"

"Have you seen the buttons on those shoes? They're miniscule."

"And are you planning on being around to help get me out of this?"

"I think Tony can figure that out on his own, but if he's having trouble, feel free to call me." It occurs to Ziva that only Jimmy could say that without any hint of salacious intent. "Okay, I've got your skirt set. Arms up."

Getting the skirt on took close to three minutes. It wasn't just that you had have it draped over you, and then tie it closed, it was getting it arranged and draped over the bustle properly.

They had just about gotten it set when Abby and Breena stepped out of the next room.

Both Jimmy and Ziva stopped dead and stared.

Abby's dress was white, mostly. Pure, pristine white. Practically the mathematical ideal of white, but like the roses in her hair and bouquet, that perfect pristine white was edged in deep, beautiful red. At her wrists, and at the edge of each flounce on her skirt was a line of crimson. And on her neck, resting just above the dip of her collarbone was a pearl choker with a black on red cameo.

The bodice clung to her exactly the way it should, not a hint of gap or wrinkling as it skimmed down her upper body before flaring into a collection of ruffles over a hoop skirt. Her posture was straight and regal. Breena had started her hair by clipping in several red streaks, and then set her hair in perfect Gibson girl style, mostly black with occasional red, curls piled atop her head, accented with pearls and miniature roses. The makeup was fresh, glowing, playing up the natural contrast between the white dress and Abby's dark hair and lashes.

"You're beautiful," Ziva and Palmer said in almost perfect concert.

"My best work, ever," Breena said, arm around Abby. "You know, it's a lot different doing the makeup on a live person." Jimmy nodded and kissed his wife, feeling very proud of her at that moment. Then he kissed Abby's cheek.

"He's so going to cry when he sees you," Jimmy said with a laugh.

Abby smiled, enjoying the way they were looking at her.

Gibbs took that moment to come in and felt his breath catch in his chest. He forced himself to exhale. "Oh, Abby." If he'd ever been on the verge of tears, this was it. He remembered Tim crying on him, and damn if he didn't feel like he might cry, too. His beautiful girl, one of them, anyway, was getting married today. And, like Palmer a minute before, he kissed her cheek, carefully, not wanting to smudge anything, and held her close, feeling swamped with how much he loved her right that moment.

"I told you, you'd like it." She squeezed him back.

He kissed her again, and went to hug Ziva. "You're beautiful, too." And she was, her own dress, a deep blue-red ruby trimmed in black, went perfectly with her skin and hair.

Breena got a hug and a kiss as well.

"Palmer." He nodded at Jimmy.

"It's okay, I don't need a hug." Gibbs gave him that somewhat bewildered look, the sort he often ends up sending to Jimmy when he says something so far outside what'd he consider the rules of normal behavior that he doesn't know what to do.

That got Gibbs back on track. "We're due downstairs in twenty-seven minutes. The guys sent me to make sure Jimmy and I were dressed in time."

Jimmy looked down, seeming to realize for the first time that he was still in a button-down, jeans, and sneakers. And Gibbs, of course, was still in jeans, a sweatshirt, and t-shirt.

"You're right, we should get changed. Let me just help Ziva get the bodice on. The sleeves are designed so the girls can't move their arms much."

"Still think this was a good idea, Abbs?" Gibbs asked the bride fondly.

She was staring at herself in the mirror, almost like she can't believe this is really her. "Tim's gonna cry when he sees me. Oh yeah, this was a good idea."

Gibbs kissed her one more time, for some reason he can't seem to stop doing that. "Yeah, he is."

Jimmy smoothed the sleeves of the bodice down Ziva's arms. "You got the buttons for yourself?"

"Sure. And if not, Breena or Abby can help me with them."

"Okay, I'll be on shoe duty in a few minutes."

Gibbs looked at Palmer, curious. "Shoe duty?"

"You try putting on shoes with twenty buttons when you can't bend at the waist."

Gibbs nodded. That didn't sound too easy.

* * *

The girls headed into the "good light room," giving Jimmy and Gibbs a little privacy for getting dressed. Okay, giving Gibbs some privacy for getting dressed, at this point all three of them know Jimmy well enough that seeing him in boxers isn't an issue.

Gibbs hadn't gone for the Stetson. In fact, with the exception of Jimmy, who was absolutely rocking the ever-living snot out of a bowler-who looked like he'd been waiting his entire life to wear one, who for all practical purposes appeared to have been born for the 1880s and the combination of the double breasted black frock coat and vest he was wearing along with the bowler and a crimson cravat-none of the guys opted for hats. Sure it wasn't precisely in tune with the style, but they're modern guys.

And Gibbs hadn't gone for the western sheriff look, no matter how fitting it might have been.

He had, like Tim, gone for a dark-gray morning suit, with full on waistcoat and ascot. To mark himself as father of the bride, his waistcoat and ascot were white, and matched with a white rose boutonniere. It occurred to him that he has never, ever dressed up so fancy in his life. Not even for his own weddings did he don clothing like this. _The things you'll do for your kids._ He thought while shaking his head, pinning the flower into place.

He drew the line at the gloves, though he noticed Tim had been wearing them_. Kind of silly, he'll be taking the damn things off about ten minutes into the wedding to put the rings on. He'll figure that out soon enough._

He's pulling on his shoes, listening to Jimmy natter away, marveling at how much Jimmy is turning into a junior version of Ducky, and also how, in costume, dressed one hundred and thirty years out of time, Jimmy looks completely comfortable. Like, somehow a costume lets him be his real self.

He straightens the pin that goes through his ascot, and thinks about how he'll be doing this again, though in a regular tux, _thank you DiNozzo!_, in five months.

And he thinks about a third wedding, one that will never happen, and how he had, from the day she was born, dreamed of giving that bride away. He focuses on the present and enjoying the people he has, and trying to not miss the ones he's lost, too badly.

He's here, alive, and getting ready to give the bride away. Soon, he'll be a grandpa, or close enough it won't matter. Which boggles his mind, and not only because of how much he's looking forward to holding Tim and Abby's baby.

The dreams you build with the people in your life don't die when those people do. That's the horror of dreams, they linger and taunt you with a future that's gone. But, given time, some awfully sweet new dreams could come along, and they could quiet some of the pain of missing the old ones.

Jimmy's still talking, but he's finished tying his cravat, so he looks done to Gibbs. "Come on, let's let the girls know we're ready."

* * *

When the girls return to the main room, Ziva' s hair is out of the curlers, pulled toward the back of her head and allowed to cascade down her back in a long flow of gentle curls, and like Abby, her makeup is light and glowy.

Palmer doffs the hat, bows low, offering the three of them a courtly gesture and kissing hands. That he would do it, and look natural at it, has Gibbs flabbergasted.

Breena's still not dressed. "Jimmy?"

"Yeah."

"I need some help."

Jimmy grins, looking like he was really going to enjoy 'helping.' "And help is on its way, my lady." He picks the shoe hook off of the dresser and tosses it to Gibbs. "Looks like you're on shoe duty."

Gibbs looked at the hook in his hand and said, "Who's up first?"

Abby pulled up her skirt. "Mine are already on. I put them on before the corset."

"Good thinking," Ziva said.

"I've worn a corset before. I'm guessing you haven't."

"No."

"Let's get you in your shoes." Gibbs waited for a beat, expecting Ziva to sit down, and then another thought occurred to him. "Can you sit in this?"

Abby smiled. "Yes, it just takes some practice." She carefully sat on the edge of the bed, showing them how to move to make it work.

Ziva sat down, and a minute later, Gibbs started on shoe buttoning. He expected more chattering out of Abby, but she seemed happy with quiet. So a long minute stretched in comfortable, content quiet while he wrestled with Ziva's shoes.

They could hear Palmer and Breena softly giggling in the other room.

Another minute passed, and he finished up with Ziva's shoes.

As he was standing up, both of his girls hugged him. Both of them, so different, so perfect, so his in his arms, broke Gibbs, and he felt the tears slide down his cheek and the grin he just couldn't stop spread across his face. He kissed both of them again.

Abby smiled brilliantly at him. "I love you, too, Gibbs."

He kissed her forehead one more time.

Palmer and Breena came out and joined the hug, after a minute Jimmy pulled back and wiped his own eyes. "So, we ready to head off and get you married?"

Abby nodded. "Yeah, Jimmy, we are."


	111. The Wedding

A formal Catholic wedding wasn't anything that mattered to Tim. But it did matter to Abby, and so he's standing there, on the front steps of the St. Sebastian's, chatting with Father John, who he rather likes, greeting the guests as they wander in.

Getting married at St. Sebastian's had required two things, first for him to be Catholic, and, at least on paper, that's true. And six weeks of pre-marital counseling, which he hadn't been thrilled about, but at least it gave him a chance to get to know the man marrying them. And, as an added bonus, Father John took a very gentle approach to trying to bring Tim back into the fold.

He thinks Father John took one look at him, and decided that if there was any shot of turning Tim back into a believer, brow beating him about the need for eternal salvation wasn't the way to do it.

And he agreed with Tim that if he didn't feel he could take Communion, that he shouldn't. He'd serve Abby, not make a big deal of Tim just sitting there, and then offer the rest of the guests the opportunity to partake.

Tim's honestly somewhat curious to see how that'll work. This isn't a very Catholic intensive group. Luca, Harper, Melody, Abby, and her pet nuns, maybe Fornell and his daughter? Maybe not, Fornell's divorced. This time last year, Tony would have taken Communion, but since he's Jewish now, that's not going to happen. Tony's dad? Like Fornell, he's divorced, a whole bunch of times over. Tim doesn't mind the idea of the Mass part of the ceremony being short, and less than a third of the guests taking communion will speed it up.

Honestly, he'd happily skip all of the ceremony but the vows.

Tony joined them. "Just got the text from Ziva. They're five minutes out."

"Almost show time. I'll go meet them, get your lady into the bride's chamber, and soon we'll get you married," Father John said, heading through the entryway.

Tim smiled. "Soon."

Vance and his kids showed up a few seconds later, and Ducky swooped in, wrapping Kayla's arm around his, washing her in a stream of gentle words about how lovely she was looking in her costume, while leading her to their seats.

Sister Rosita showed up a minute later, kissed him on the cheek and wished him well.

And a few minutes after that Kyle and his girlfriend came in, and by Tim's count, that meant the whole party was there.

Father John came back a few seconds later. "Is that everyone?"

"Yeah," Tony answered.

"Okay then." He turned to Tim. "Got a handkerchief in your suit?" Tim nodded. Then to Tony he said, "Got the rings?"

Tony patted his jacket. "Got the rings."

"Doctor Mallard, do you have the readings you've selected?"

Ducky touched his breast pocket. "Song of Songs is ready to go."

"Well then, gentlemen, I think it's time for you to line up, and head on in. You know where you're supposed to stand, so get over there."

Tim took a deep breath, let it out, and forced his hands to stop jittering. _Go time!_

Tony saw him do it, grinned, and then gently squeezed his shoulder.

And then he walked to the front of the Church, turned to face the aisle, and waited for the first glimpse of his bride.

* * *

Tim and Abby had decided on a family-only wedding. It amuses Gibbs to see who qualifies as family. His dad is there, in full on Western gambler wear, as is Tony's, in perfect bespoke cut-away, ascot, top hat, and silver tipped cane. Tim's dad isn't. But his sister, sister's boyfriend, mother, step-father, and grandmother are. Luca's family is here, and so is Kyle and his girlfriend. Vance and his kids are here. Fornell is here, with his daughter as his plus one. There are a few cousins that Gibbs doesn't recognize, half a dozen nuns, and that's it. Thirty people, tops.

He's supposed to be hiding out in the Bride's chamber, but the photographer wants shots of the girls together, so he drifts over to Fornell, looking at a very plain, almost military style uniform in navy blue topped off with a buckskin duster and a something he'd call an 1880s style cavalry hat with goggles and gears on the band.

Fornell looks him over and smiles, vastly amused. "What are you supposed to be?"

"Father of the bride. I should ask you the same thing."

"I have no idea. Ever since Christmas she's been messing around with this costume, doing research, sketching, sewing. She kept muttering about dirigibles and aeronauts, and sketching more and tossing sketches away and starting over, bossing me around and nagging about buying more fabric and things to stick on the costume." Fornell sighs. "As soon as I said yes to her and Abby, I lost any control I had over this." Gibbs looks over at Emily Fornell. She's sitting in a pew, playing with her phone, taking pictures of everything, and chatting with Kayla Vance and Harper Sciuto. Emily and Kayla are in outfits he'd call dance hall-girl-wear designed by someone who had to get her father's permission to leave the house in it. Harper's in leggings and a corset covered with a knee-length gold brocade coat. All three of them appear to be having a blast.

"She's taking lessons from her mom?"

"I think she's teaching them."

Gibbs shakes his head. "Dirigibles?"

"Like the Hindenburg."

"Uh huh."

"Yeah."

Vance joins them. He'd gone for the Western Sherriff look, and was, with the exception of a cobalt vest and tie, and his Texas Ranger style badge, in head to toe black. He looks Gibbs over and smiles, and then says to Fornell, "Why are there gears on your hat?"

"I have no idea about that, either. But I've got them on my gloves, too." Fornell shows both of them a pair of cavalry gloves he has folded and tucked over his belt, also bedecked with gears on the cuffs. "Almost everyone here has commented on how 'cool' I look. I've got nuns telling me I'm cool. I'm not sure I like being cool."

"Your cross to bear, Tobias," Gibbs says dryly.

"You ready to do your part?" Vance asks Gibbs.

Gibbs nods and checks his watch. "Yeah. I should get back over there."

"Okay."

* * *

How many photographs does one wedding need?

Gibbs is fairly sure that the guy with the camera has taken more shots of him with Abby and Ziva than were taken of him as the groom in all four of his weddings combined.

Fortunately Father John came in and put a stop to that. "Everyone is here, and the guys are in place. It's wedding time."

Gibbs silently thanks God, and the photographer heads off to set up in the Church somewhere to get seventeen million more shots.

They're waiting in the front hall, lined up, ready to go. Ziva's going in first, then Breena, followed by Jimmy, and then the two of them.

The doors open, and some pleasant, mostly piano, music echoes out. Ziva smiles at them, looks forward, and takes her first step down the aisle.

And suddenly Gibbs is really hoping the photographer got a shot of Tony's face as he saw Ziva because the utter shock at Ziva in a concoction of fluffy, lacy red, combined with the look of a man so deeply in love he doesn't know what to do with himself was priceless.

With Ziva halfway down the aisle, Breena gives Jimmy a quick kiss, and she's off. Then he turns to Abby, kisses her cheek again, squeezes he hand, whispers, "I love you" in her ear, and follows his wife down the aisle.

It should only be thirty seconds before they go, but it feels longer.

"You doing okay?" Gibbs asks as they wait to walk down the aisle. Palmer's almost all the way down. He was expecting Abby to be bouncing around all over the place right now, but she's not, she's beautifully calm, composed, and radiant.

"Yeah. I am." She takes a deep breath. "I think this is the difference between happiness and joy."

Gibbs smiles, gives her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. The music changes, her bridal march. They wait for a beat longer, as everyone stands up. "You ready?"

She squeezes his hand, and he wraps her arm around his. "Yeah, Gibbs, I am. Let's go."

He found himself grinning. "Let's go."

* * *

Tim didn't cry when he saw her. He was actually pretty proud of that.

He couldn't have named the emotion going through him as he watched Abby walk towards him, radiant in white and red, Gibbs at her side, with a week's worth of time and every thesaurus ever written.

But, if you were to ask him to describe it, the best he'd be able to do would be this: it was like every good feeling, every great feeling, love and hope and joy and bliss and contentment and peace and ecstasy and more love on top of that, all jumping around trying to burst out of every pore.

So, instead of crying, he stood there, beaming, huge smile plastered on his face, forcing himself not to fidget, watching her smile back at him, burning every detail of this into his memory.

They stood there, just a few feet away, and Tim wanted to reach for her, take her from Gibbs, but it wasn't quite time for that yet.

The Priest began his part, and Tim waited, willing it to go faster.

"Who gives this woman..."

"Her brothers and I do." Gibbs hugged Abby for a long minute, then kissed her cheek, and gave her hand to Tim, squeezing both of their hands as he did it, and headed to his seat, next to Luca.

Tim held Abby's hand. She was so excited she was trembling, and he was too, and he had no idea what Father John was saying, couldn't care less. The perfection of this moment, of Abby in front of him, hands in his, washed everything else away.

He tuned in just enough so he didn't mess up. Father John was going to ask some questions, and he can't just sit there, staring at Abby, memorizing how the red strands entwine with the black of her hair, or the curve of her ear, or the luscious slip of the pearls of her choker against her throat each time she breathes.

"Do you Tim take Abby to be your wife – to live together after God's ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon her your heart's deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto her as long as you both shall live?"

Time to talk. "I do."

She smiled, eyes so happy, whole being suffused with joy as he said that, and he felt all lit up, seeing her respond to two simple words.

"And, do you Abby take Tim to be your husband – to live together after God's ordinance – in the holy estate of matrimony? Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, in sadness and in joy, to cherish and continually bestow upon him your heart's deepest devotion, forsaking all others, keep yourself only unto him as long as you both shall live?"

"I do." He heard her say that and knew how she felt half a moment earlier, the intense high of words that feel better than almost anything else in the world.

"What token of your love do you offer?" Tony got the rings out of his pocket. "Would you place the rings in my hand?" and handed them to Father John.

John held the rings in his upturned palm. "May these rings be blessed as the symbol of this affectionate unity. These two lives are now joined in one unbroken circle. Wherever they go – may they always return to one another. May these two find in each other the love for which all men and women yearn. May they grow in understanding and in compassion. May the home which they establish together be such a place that many will find there a friend. May these rings on their fingers symbolize the touch of the spirit of love in their hearts."

He handed Abby's ring to Tim. "Tim and Abby wanted to expand on those ideas, add something more personal to them, so they've written their own vows to go along with the exchange of rings. Tim..."

Tim held the ring in his right hand. He took a half-step closer to Abby, raising his left hand, realizing he's got the glove on and taking it off quickly, this touch needs to be skin to skin, and then rested his palm against her jaw, fingers by her ear, thumb gently stroking her cheek.

He held her gaze, reveling in the green of her eyes, the black of her lashes, and the sublime beauty of her smiling at him. He took a deep breath and began to speak. "Every day, we go out, fight the bad guys, and make the world a better place. We use our time and our energy to do important things." He was smiling, but he could feel the tears starting, and hoped his voice would hold for this. "And I promise, from today until I take my last breath, to remember that you and our children are a world unto yourselves, filled with important things, one that I am privileged to belong to. Today, I pledge my life to putting that world first.

"I love you, Abby, that's my bedrock. It's the foundation of my life.

"Above and beyond anything else, I am the man who loves you.

"I love you. That's the catalyst of my life becoming our life.

"I love you. And from that love, and from our life, comes new lives.

"I love you, and from this breath to my last, I will live that love in everything I do, valuing it above and beyond all other commitments, knowing that it's both my honor and my duty to do so."

He swept away her tears with his thumbs, and felt his own on his cheek, and it didn't matter that the priest hadn't said he could do it, words like that need to be sealed with an action, so he leaned in and kissed her.

For a good ten seconds there was nothing but silence while they kissed, her lips sweet and warm on his. Then the priest cleared his throat, causing Tim to pull back.

Father John made some sort of half-hearted joke about getting an early start in, which caused the guests to giggle a little, but mostly served to tone down the intimacy of his words and dull the force of them on those who had assembled to witness this.

Tim quickly wiped the tears off his cheek, took her left hand in his, grinned at her, and slipped her wedding ring onto her finger.

"And now for Abby's vows."

She smiled at him, already holding his hands, but he felt her give him a little extra squeeze, and then took his hand, lifted it to her lips, and kissed the palm.

"You told me once, that symbols should matter. And you live that. You wear me on your skin," her hand caressed his arm where the tattoo was, and brushed over the wrist cuff he only took off to shower, "and carry me in your heart. And today is a symbol of that, but it's more than just the symbol; it's also action. It's ideas made real. It's a promise, and a hope, and the first step of something familiar, yet new. Today is both of us taking on a new symbol, and pledging to live up to it, to make it matter. I love you, Tim, and I promise to be worthy of this symbol. I will be worthy of your life, your heart, and your name. I will treat you with care and respect, with love, and with the joy having you near brings me. From now until you lay me to rest, I will be at your side, traveling through this world with you, and anywhere with you will be my home."

She slipped the ring over his finger, holding his hands, thumb stroking over it, grinning brilliantly at him. He was starting to lean in to kiss her again when Father John started talking, reminding him they weren't alone.

Tim tuned back out again, focusing on Abby and not what Father John had to say. But, since he was focused on her, he caught the slight shift in her expression which meant start paying attention.

So he noticed when Father John said, "You may _now_ kiss the bride."

And so he did.

* * *

A/N: Reception is up tomorrow, and then we'll get into honeymoon territory! Hope the vows were worth the build up.


	112. The Reception

"Ziva's going to want to get changed, too," Abby says as they walk into the bedroom of the suite at the hotel.

The plan was finish up the formal photos, head back to the hotel, get changed into the less formal reception costumes, and then party time. Palmer and Breena had been nice enough to give Tony and Ziva a lift, and the wink Palmer gave Tim made him pretty sure they'd drive slow, which meant Tim and Abby had had his car to themselves. And he probably set the land speed record from the church to the hotel.

Tim grins at her, shutting the door to the bedroom, or as Breena had called it, 'the good light room', locking it, pressing her against it, saying, "They can wait. I've got you all to myself, Mrs. McGee, and I intend to take advantage of it."

"It or me?"

"Both!"

He steps back, and turns her away from him, kissing her neck, and starting on the line of tiny buttons down the back of her dress.

"I get why they call them bodice rippers. This is impossible!"

Her eyes are wide as she looks over her shoulder at him. "Don't rip it! I really like this dress and want to keep it."

"Then you better hope I can get this off in the next two minutes, because I'm going to go crazy if I can't." He's nipping wet kisses down the part of her back he has managed to get exposed, about the top three inches.

She reaches behind her, cupping him through his trousers, and gives him a firm squeeze. "God, Abby, that's not helping my concentration."

She laughs, joy and happiness bubbling out, gently squeezes him again, and then lets go, starting on the buttons on her sleeves.

His fingers yank at the buttons, forcing them through their holes fast, and in less than two minutes he did get the bodice off. Tim tosses it aside, pushing the straps of her shift down, kissing her shoulder while he starts on the knots holding up her skirt.

"Who tied this for you?"

"Palmer."

"Palmer is evil. Pure unadulterated evil."

"Why?"

"Screw this." Tim grabs the small knife he's got in his keychain and begins to cut through the ties on the dress and bustle. "Triple knots. Tiny, little, impossible to untie, triple knots."

Abby giggles as her skirt falls to the floor. The bustle and hoops join it a second later.

For a moment, Tim stops to just look at her. White, button up, high-heeled, ankle boots, pure white stockings, a white shift skimming from her thighs to her shoulders, and a white corset, embroidered with tiny, blue roses. His eyes drift to the tattoo he put on her arm, and the ring on her finger, and to her stomach, still flat under the corset but not for all that much longer, and that insane rush of MINE that Palmer had talked about hit him like a hammer to the skull.

His hand drew up her leg, looking to tug panties off, and found bare skin.

"Oh, that's so hot!"

She grins at him. "I thought it was possible we might find a time to do this."

He hooks her leg over his hip, fingers caressing virginal white stockings tied with light blue ribbons. "God, I love you."

"I love you, too. Now quit fooling around and fuck me!"

"Yes!" He drops his pants and slips into her. "Oh. Fuck baby, you're glorious!"

"Damn right I am!"

It's fast. It has to be, Ziva and Tony are going to be up soon, and while the potential to get caught adds to the thrill, actually getting caught isn't something either of them want.

And happy. They both keep laughing between hot, wet kisses and soft, muted groans.

Tim thought he'd seen every version of Abby's orgasm face, but this one, a mix of smile and pleasure so sharp it almost hurt blows him away.

He's standing on shaky legs, breathing hard, enjoying his own post-orgasmic tingles and the soft aftershocks of hers, forehead on her shoulder when he looks up at her and says, "We should make a habit of this."

"This?"

"Up-against-the-wall quickies at weddings. Definitely need to slip off during Tony and Ziva's."

"I'll be five months pregnant then."

"Oh God, you will." His eyes light up as he imagines her five months pregnant. "You'll be all soft and round and curvy. And we will definitely have to do this. Tony and Ziva's wedding, no panties for you!"

She giggles at that. His hand closes on her breast and he kisses gently, then her shoulder and neck.

"I can just see it. Soft round breasts, soft round belly, God, you'll have to beat me off with a stick to keep me away from you when you're five months pregnant."

"Beat you off with a stick? We've never tried a stick before, but I suppose I can do that. What are you thinking, a long thin rod, like a pointer, or a branch from a tree?"

He laughs, head back, eyes closed, joy just bubbling out.

"We can figure that out then." He leans his forehead against hers. "You know what?"

She kisses the tip of his nose. "What?"

"We got married!"

She's smiling, eyes bright. "Yeah, we did." They hear the door to the suite open followed by Tony and Ziva's voices. She kisses him again, arms around his neck. "And now we've got to get changed and act appropriate."

He twists and reaches, just able to grab the box of tissues on the dresser. "There's one thing to be said for condoms," he says, voice quiet. "The clean-up for this last time was a bit easier."

"Yeah, but this time you'll know that I'm wet with you for the rest of the wedding."

His eyes went wide. "I hadn't thought about it. But now I am. I'm going to have a hard-on in all the wedding photos."

"Creative cropping should take care of that."

He starts to giggle again as he wipes up and she heads to the bathroom.

Tony knocks on the door. "You two decent?"

"Almost." Tim opens the window, realizing the room has to smell like sex. Oh well, they notice, they notice. Not like they didn't just get married.

He didn't have a whole lot of changing to do. He pulls up his pants and tucks his shirt back in, making sure the vest was straight, then swapped out his ascot for a loosely tied black cravat and his spats for boots. A black frock coat replaced the morning jacket, and though he had intended to mess up his hair, Abby had already taken care of that. Gloves off, post sex glow, mussed hair: he looked properly rakish.

Abby comes out of the bathroom a minute later and turns her back to him. "Help me out?"

"Oh yeah." He unties her corset, and she slips out of the shift, leaving her naked save for the stockings and boots.

He was stroking her back, pulling her closer to him when she says, quietly, "They're in the next room."

"Then don't make a lot of noise," he whispers, grinning, turning her in his arms and kneels down. He lightly kisses her belly and then inches lower to her pussy, for a soft, wet, and much too quick kiss. "If I have to walk around knowing you're wet with my cum, you get to know that you're on my lips."

She pulls him up and kisses him soundly, licking herself off of him. Granted the groom doesn't get kissed nearly as often as the bride does, but still, he's likely to be kissing other people tonight, and that's a bit too much of an advertisement of what they've been up to. "Come on, we need to get dressed."

The white stockings stay. So do the boots. She steps into a ruffled black and white skirt that falls from mid-left thigh to her right calf. Over that goes something that looks like a cross between a tank top and a corset. It has shoulder straps like a tank, but the snug fit, light boning, and lace up front of a corset. And, this tickles Tim to no end, it's leather, white leather. She adds a small white top hat, with a tiny white lace veil, pinning it to her hair, and checks her makeup, swapping out the light pink lipstick she had worn during the ceremony for a red stain finishes her look.

"Ready?" she asks.

"I think so." He checks himself in the mirror one last time, making sure he didn't have any lipstick on his neck or a semen stain on his trousers, but he appears to be all put together.

His hand is on the door when she said, "Wait!"

"What?"

"Garter."

"Oh." She heads to one of the bags on the bed, shuffles around in it for a moment, and finds a circlet of red lace and black satin. She tosses it to him. "Put it on me?"

"Thought I was supposed to take it off."

"You'll do that, too."

He grins, promises of sexy fun in his eyes. "Oh, yes, I will."

She holds out her right leg, and he slips it up, making sure it's nicely snug around her thigh. "Good?"

"Yep." She kisses him one last time.

So, about five minutes after Tony and Ziva got there, he opened the door, both of them looking significantly more playful, relaxed, and mildly flushed than they had half an hour earlier when they had last seen them.

Tony takes one look at them and says, "You've been married for five minutes! You couldn't have waited until after we needed to use that room?"

Which causes both of them to collapse into a giggling heap.

* * *

Five minutes later, while Ziva was getting changed, and Abby and Tim were sitting on the sofa, snuggling, the rest of the wedding party found their way up to the Bridal suite.

Jimmy grinned at them. "Gibbs finally shot the photographer with a tranquilizer dart, and we were able to get free. The guests are downstairs, munching away and mingling. DJ says that as soon as we're ready for the grand entrance, he is as well."

"Just waiting on Tony and Ziva," Abby answered.

Which was when Ziva stepped out, looking sleek, cool, and dangerous in her gunfighter costume. "Not anymore."

* * *

"For the first time in public, Mr. and Mrs. Tim McGee!" The DJ's words echoed through the ballroom, followed by the first notes of their first song together. Tim wrapped Abby in his arms, feeling her body, soft and warm against his, letting the music move through them, and the rest of the world slid away as they danced.

He was singing along and didn't care how stupid he might have looked doing it. She was smiling at him, eyes warm and filled with joy, and he was just so exultantly in love at that moment.

When the music shifted to You Shook Me (All Night Long) and the other couples joined them, some of them looking pretty shocked at this music choice, he began to laugh, just to let the joy out. She laughed with him as they danced close and sexy, and he thinks this might be the heart of love, the ability to laugh together while wanting each other. That sex and joy and humor should all be one big ball of good.

Or maybe not.

But it felt really good, so he wasn't going to argue with it.

* * *

One of the ways Tim can tell nervous from excited is that nervous makes him want to eat all the time and excited kills his appetite.

There was food. It smelled good. He ate about two bites of it. It was probably tasty, but he didn't really notice.

But eating gives everyone a chance to just settle back, relax, focus on something pleasant.

He felt very outside himself. He was enjoying watching everyone he loved having a good time, but there was still a very deep surreality to it.

Like, he sat there, chatting with Palmer for a few minutes, almost feeling normal, and then it would come back in a massive wave, they just got married, and he'd have to touch Abby, kiss her, find the ground again, and then there'd be another few minutes of normal while he watched her eat, or listened to Tony tease Ziva, or something like that, and then he'd feel the ring on his finger or see the one on hers, and another swamping wave of married would hit him.

She saw it hit him, and took his hand in hers gently, caressed his face, and leaned over to kiss his ear and whisper, "I love you, Tim."

He kissed her back. "Love you, too."

Then she took her fork, pierced a piece of the salmon on his plate, and fed it to him. "Have you eaten a real meal today?"

He thought about that and shrugged, honestly not sure.

Once more she leaned over to whisper into his ear. "I've got plans for tonight, and they aren't going to happen if you pass out from low blood sugar. Eat."

So he did.

* * *

When a solider gets married, he uses his dress saber to cut the cake. Tim supposes the equivalent for him would be shooting the cupcakes with his service pistol, but that would just be messy. And besides, they're cupcakes, not too much reason to cut them.

He knew which sort of cupcake she liked the best. The almond-cherry ones. And they were awfully tasty. He found one of them, the pale, cream colored frosting with two almonds and a cherry on top let him know he had the right kind, peeled back the paper, and fed her a bite of it.

She licked the frosting off her lip, found a tiramisu one, and like him, peeled back the paper, and offered him his cupcake.

He took her wrist in his hand and kissed the fingers holding the cupcake, then took his bite.

* * *

Abby was dancing with Gibbs when Tony came over to him and said, "You're ghostwriting my vows."

"No!"

"Please. I will never, ever sound that good on my own."

"Yeah, and it just about killed me to come up with them. Get your own vows."

"I'll pay you."

"You can't afford me!"

"Try me."

Tim was almost tempted to actually tell Tony how much he gets paid to write, (At one point, while he was procrastinating, he worked out, based on his hourly rate, how much his vows cost. $3,472) but decided against it. "No. I've plotted out entire novels in less time than it took me to come up with them. I don't have hours to sit around thinking about your vows."

"Look, I'll end up sounding like Palmer if I do it on my own. Worse, I'll sound like the stuff Palmer cut out of his vows because it was too goofy."

Tim was singularly unmoved by that plea.

"If I write a rough draft, will you at least help?"

Tim smiled. "That I will do."

* * *

A thought occurred to Tim as the DJ announced the garter toss. Abby wasn't wearing panties. She saw the quick flash of panic on his face and grinned at him, sitting down, quickly crossing her legs, and then extending her right leg, toe pointed.

That worked. He grinned back up at her, kissed her knee, eased it off, and then whipped it right at Tony's head. Sheer reflex alone meant Tony caught it before he was even aware of the fact it was coming at him.

For a second he just stared at it in his hand, and then he broke out laughing, folded it up carefully, and tucked it into the pocket of Ziva's coat.

* * *

Jimmy got him alone as the party was starting to wind down.

"You don't ever get to rag on me about being too sappy again."

Tim raised one eyebrow.

"You were singing along to her with your first dance."

"Singing along to The Troggs, quietly, in her ear, not serenading her with Bette Midler's greatest hit."

Jimmy grinned and shook his head. "The only reason you weren't serenading her is because you can't sing."

"Un huh. Keep telling yourself that. I was doing fine with the Troggs."

"The Troggs can't sing, either. Wind Beneath My Wings is technically challenging and actually requires vocal skill. And if you could have done something like that you would have."

Tim laughed, aware of the fact that Palmer is probably right, but not about to say it. "No, I wouldn't have because they'd have to tap me every spring to let the sap out if I did."

"Says the guy who was writing a love poem ten hours ago."

Tim smirked. "A non-sappy love poem."

Jimmy half-snorted half-laughed, and sang, "I feel it in my fingers..."

"Classic rock is not sappy."

"The addition of guitars and British accents does not lessen the sap factor. 'I feel it in my toes.'"

Tim shoved Jimmy a little. "I nailed my vows."

Jimmy smiled. "Yeah, you did."

"And there was nothing even remotely sappy about the second song, so that balanced things out nicely."

"If you say so."

They stood there for a moment, watching Abby dance with Jackson and Breena with Ducky. "So, I noticed that Abby didn't actually drink any of the champagne after Tony's toast."

Tim nodded.

"When did you find out?"

Tim grinned. "Yesterday morning."

"You get it now?"

Tim nodded again. "Yeah, I do. I almost killed you last night. And you're right, it's completely insane. My hand was in a fist, ready to hit, just at the idea that you might have... And at no point did my brain have any input on the subject. It was just sitting back and watching like it was a TV show. Never even imagined I could feel this way about someone."

Palmer smirked happily at him. "It'll get worse when you can actually see her body start to change. And, from what I can tell, it doesn't go away."

Tim thought about that. "Breena's pretty much been pregnant or nursing for the last year and a half. So I think that's sort of what you're designed to do at this point. Protect your woman and kids."

"Probably. So, who all knows?"

"You and Gibbs. Maybe Ziva. If you noticed Abby not drinking, she probably did, too."

Jimmy shook his head. "Both of the girls have to know. No way they went out last night and they didn't notice."

"Good point."

"But you told Gibbs"

"Yeah, yesterday."

"How'd he take it?"

"He hugged me."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"He hugs guys?"

"He does today. Ducky hugged you when you told him about Breena, right?"

"Yeah, he did, both times. But he's not... Well, he's not Gibbs."

"True. When did you tell him? I mean with Molly." Tim had been there when they made the announcement for the new baby, and honestly, just about everyone hugged both of them, though if he remembered correctly Gibbs did slap Palmer on the back rather than hug him.

"About two hours after we found out. He had to ask me for a scalpel three times, and I still hadn't given it to him, so he finally turned to me and asked me what was so pressing that I could not be bothered to pay attention to the poor murdered man on the table, so I told him, and he seemed to think being distracted was an appropriate response."

"I'm really glad I'm not on duty for two more weeks. That's enough time to get used to this, a little at least."

Jimmy just grinned at him. "A little."

* * *

Talking with Jimmy made Tim realize that if he didn't get a move on, Tony was, once again, going to be left out of their big news, and probably wouldn't be happy about it.

He cut in on Abby dancing with Luca, and let her know what was going on.

She rested her head on his shoulder, not only was it comfortable, and sweet, but it also let her speak to him easily, without everyone seeing what they were talking about.

"Yeah, told Breena and Ziva last night. Had to. We had planned to go dancing and drinking, and the drinking thing wasn't going to happen."

His lips were pressed to her temple. "Okay. I'd like to tell Tony, so he doesn't feel left out."

"Good idea."

They continued swaying together through the rest of that song, and the next one, (Can't Help Falling in Love, the original Elvis version) and then he broke off to find Tony.

He was talking with Gibbs, good. Tim didn't have a plan for what to do if, say, Senior or Luca or someone had been there.

"Hey."

Tony stared at him. "You're looking really serious."

Tim smiled. He'd been doing it so much today his cheeks were sore. "Not serious, well, I guess it is, important mostly."

"What?"

"This is just for the immediate family: you guys, Ziva, and the Palmers. Don't want it getting spread around, yet."

If the grin on his face was any hint, Tony knew what was coming next.

"Abby's pregnant."

Next thing he knew he was being hugged, pounded on the back, and Tony was saying, "This is great!" Then he pulled back, turned, and stared at Gibbs, who found his wallet and handed Tony a hundred dollar bill.

Gibbs shrugged. "He didn't think you'd make it to the wedding. I did."

Tim snorted and then full on laughed. "This is what you two do when I'm not around?"

Gibbs smiled. Tony said, "Among other things."

* * *

The bouquet toss at a wedding with three adolescent girls is something to behold. Kayla, Harper, and Emily were really intensely interested in ending up with that bouquet. _Really._

Sarah stood a few feet away from them, next to Penny, and Luca's girlfriend. Penny was saying something about patriarchal marriage expectations, but allowed herself to be dragged over by Sarah none-the-less.

Tim didn't know if Abby intentionally tossed the bouquet at his grandma. But he does know it's a good thing the old lady is a great catch and fast on her feet, because she was able to snag the flowers out of the air before they hit the ground and side-step Harper Sciuto who almost tackled her in her effort to get them.

And he didn't miss the way Ducky winked at her as she stood there holding them, looking like she can't believe she's got them.

* * *

Eventually it was getting onto ten. Not terribly late, especially not for them, but it's been a long day, and as Abby said, they've got plans for the night.

They left the hotel under a shower of bubbles and headed for his car, and from there, home and life as Mr. and Mrs. McGee.


	113. The Wedding Night

In almost any situation, if given the option, Tim will take real candles over the fake ones with the LED lights. He just prefers how fire works, how it looks, and the general feel of it.

But, tonight was an example of the only situation he could think of where he preferred the LEDs. Namely, before they left for the church, he set up their house for tonight, and if he had done it with real candles, he would have needed someone to sneak in and light the damn things, or left her waiting in the car while he got them all lit (and it would have taken forever because he's got 75 of them).

Abby walked next to him up to the porch, holding his hand, and he unlocked the door, then picked her up, kissing her as she giggled, and carried her over the threshold, up the stairs, and down the hall to their bedroom, each step of the way lit by little LED tea lights in small crystal globes.

He'd put them on each step, clusters of them in the hall, and set collections of the different sized pillar candles all over their room. The whole house was suffused with softly glowing gold.

The softly glowing gold lit a bedroom where the sheets had been changed out, their usual soft, nubby flannel replaced with cream colored 1600 thread count cotton. The comforter had been folded back to show off the new sheets. He'd thought about sprinkling rose petals all over the place but decided against it. He had no idea what the shelf life of rose petals yanked off the rose was, but didn't want them to be getting brownish and dry by the time they got home.

But there were roses, whole, beautiful, sitting on her nightstand, and ready to be played with.

He placed her on the edge of the bed, kissed her long and soft, and then pulled back.

"Gotta close the door, and grab the rest of the stuff I got set up earlier."

She smiled at him. "Got a few surprises of my own, too." She checked the clock. "I want you back up here in fifteen minutes, okay?"

"I can do that."

* * *

He had a plate of strawberries, cream for whipping, and chocolate in the refrigerator. He'd planned on strawberries and champagne, but yesterday changed that plan. Bottled water would do.

He'd gotten the idea for the strawberries over the summer. They'd been out with Palmer and Breena, some sort of farmer's market thing, and Breena had grabbed a big box of them.

And later that afternoon, while he and Jimmy played with Molly in the baby pool, he was watching Abby eat them, really enjoying it, probably with a pretty stupid smile on his face the whole time. Finally she had said to him, "What?"

He just grinned. "The man who doesn't appreciate watching a woman eat strawberries is gay or has no imagination, and since neither of those things are true about me…" and then he pulled her, giggling, into his lap, splashing water all over both of them, (and Jimmy, and Molly who grinned a two-toothed, six month-old-baby smile, decided splashing was the best thing ever, and spent the next twenty minutes at it) and kissed her.

And since then, whenever they've had strawberries, she's given him something of a show when she eats them.

He took the blender out of the fridge, set it up, and whipped the cream. And that really was easy.

He'd been planning on spooning some Cool Whip into a bowl, but a few minutes before they were going to leave for the wedding Ducky had put the left over snacks in the fridge, seen the Cool Whip next to the strawberries, and then came out of the kitchen, tub of Cool Whip in his hands, looking at Tim with disgust.

"Timothy." Ducky sighed, and held up the Cool Whip. "This atrocity has no place in your home, let alone any plans you might have for your wedding night." Ducky tossed it into the trash can. "Real whipped cream takes less than a minute to make and is vastly better for anything you might want to do with it. Watch." He took the cream Tim uses in his coffee out of the fridge and poured it into the bowl of his blender. "Oh, that's convenient," Ducky said, looking at the measures on the side of the bowl. He added a little sugar. "Do you have any vanilla?"

"Yes." Tim pointed to their cupboard. "It's kind of old." He only uses it to make Christmas cookies.

Ducky opened it, sniffed, and poured a few drops into the cream and then put the lid on the blender.

"The secret to great whipped cream is making sure that everything is very cold when you do the whipping. By the time you get back tonight the cream, the bowl, and the blade at the bottom of the blender will all be thoroughly chilled. Just set it up, hit the whip button a few times, and you'll have whipped cream."

"Oh."

And standing there, spooning a nice, cold, fluffy mass of what does indeed taste significantly better than Cool Whip, and honestly, has a better texture, too, into a bowl, he realizes the old man was right.

He popped the chocolate into the microwave, forty-five seconds in there and a quick stir would take care of it.

Tim checked his watch, four minutes down, eleven to go.

He headed for the powder room and looked at himself. He's sure Abby's up there doing something to make herself look sexy… She's already sexy. Sexier… He swallows hard at the idea of what that might be. So some effort on his part would be a good thing.

Sometimes he wishes that lingerie for guys didn't look so goddamn stupid. He's not adverse to costumes and playing or anything like that, but for whatever reason little silky things on him always look dumb as hell. (And yes, he does know that from first-hand experience; it's not just conjecture on his part.) He's read that a man in a good suit is for women what a woman in something small and lacy is for men, and he agrees with that, because from his experience (and from what Breena, Abby, and Ziva have agreed with) men in lingerie just makes them giggle.

Of course, Abby prefers him dressed up, but a little undone.

He took his jacket off, unbuttoned his top button, loosened the cravat a little more, and rolled up his sleeves. She likes to be able to see the wrist cuff. He stood there and debated unbuttoning his vest, but eventually came down on the side of it looked better on. He took his watch off; it makes the cuff on his left stand out a little more if his right wrist is bare. Tim took his boots and socks off, not so much because it looked better now, honestly, now it looks a little strange, but he doesn't want to mess with the boots later, and black socks and naked isn't a good look for any guy.

Which left him with eight minutes to kill.

He wandered back into the kitchen, and messed around with the strawberries a little, rearranging them in the bowl, trying to make them look prettier.

Then an idea hit. The whipped cream is mostly for him. Abby's not a huge fan of it, so he was thinking of licking it off of her. But she does like chocolate mousse, and though he's not a great cook, he's fairly sure chocolate mousse is basically melted chocolate (in bowl A) and whipped cream (in bowl B). Twenty seconds of googling, a minute long youtube video, and he's folding the cream into the chocolate, well, not like a pro, but like someone who's very eager to make some chocolate mousse, quickly.

And with a minute to go, he was heading up the stairs, strawberries, water, and chocolate mousse on a tray, very eager to see what she's been up to.

* * *

It had taken Abby a while to figure out what she wanted to do tonight, after all, it's their wedding night, so it's got to be special, really special.

In all honestly, she'd probably spent longer bouncing ideas around for this than it took to come up with the idea for the wedding.

Granted, she didn't have Palmer and Breena helping her plan this.

Well, not Palmer. Some ideas did get bounced off of Breena and Ziva, but none of them really loved the ideas she was playing with.

In the end, it was mostly a matter of chance. The lady who made her dress was a costume designer, and her Etsy page had a lot of interesting things on it, mostly period dresses, but one thing she had on there had been custom designed for someone else, and was just being held on Etsy to make it easier to pay for.

It was a beautiful, calf length, 1950s Hollywood style peignoir in peacock blue with a black lace trim. And when Abby saw it, the idea started to form. Judging by how Tim reacted to her in the Marilyn get up, both from the it-didn't-look-like-anything-she'd-usually-wear side, and from the it-was-just-really-pretty side, she figured this should hit a bunch of his buttons, as well.

Seeing how into the first-time-at-the-lake-girl-scout fantasy Tim was solidified the idea.

And so, picture in hand, she asked if Jennie (the costume designer) could make one for her, but for a wedding night. In white, pristine, virginal white. Jennie looked at her, and suggested that a cream lace trim would make it look better, add just a little contrast, and make sure the white didn't wash her out. Once she saw the colors against her skin, Abby agreed.

It was also the lightest, sheerest silk Abby had ever felt. It was like wearing the idea of lingerie. Hints of her nipples and tattoos were visible through it.

That would certainly get his attention.

She took her hair down. In order to have enough of it to put it up properly, yesterday she'd had extensions added in. And Breena had put in the red streaks. Which meant right now, she had a long, fluffy spill of black hair with red highlights curling down her shoulders and back.

Abby washed off her makeup, and then redid her eyelashes and brows. She didn't want anything that would feel (or worse, taste) like makeup on her skin, but darker, longer eyelashes are always a good thing. The red lip stain she'd put on before the reception had faded a bit, but still left her lips darker and fuller than normal.

She patted her hair a little, and fluffed the roots a little higher.

That done, she opened the bathroom door, and stepped out.

* * *

He was putting the tray with the food on it on the nightstand when she opened the bathroom door.

And it was a good thing he had it almost all the way down because his hands went slack when he saw her, so he dropped it the last inch. For a long minute he just stared, saying nothing, looking his fill at this amazingly beautiful woman in front of him.

It's a white nighty. The kind the looks a little like an old-fashioned slip. And she's looking up at him, a little shy, catching his eye, then looking away, biting her lip.

"It's just, I've never done this before, and I'm a little scared."

His eyes went wide and his breath caught in his chest. That's a game they've never played before and it sears into him, making his dick go hard so fast he felt light-headed.

He licked his lips, taking a moment to figure out what to say to that. What would be in character? What works with the clothes and the setting and their wedding night, and it hits him, and he smiles.

"Me either, and I'm a little scared, too, but we'll figure it out together. We're good at that."

She grinned, eyes lighting up with joy at that response. And he feels so happy he doesn't know what to do with himself.

They stepped toward each other, meeting in the center of the room, in front of their bed. His hands hovered over her shoulders for a second, letting the heat build between them, before gently slipping down her arms, his fingers twining with hers.

"We'll take it slow, see what we like, and play it by ear."

She smiled at him, still nibbling her lip, looking so amazingly adorable and sexy. "That sounds good."

They're both in bare feet, so she raises on her toes, and pressed into him for a long, slow kiss. It's soft, easy, gentle, just lips on lips, exploring. He can feel her wedding band, and gives her hand a gentle squeeze, then lets her hands go and traces his fingers lightly down her back.

She shivered a little at that, so he pulled back to ask, "Good?"

"Yeah."

"How about…" He twisted one hand into the mass of her hair, lifting it off her neck, as she rested her head on his shoulder, and scraped his fingernails, once again, lightly, from the nape of her neck to the top of her peignoir.

She purred gently and pressed in a little closer, as he played the tips of his fingers over her neck and shoulders.

Part of him was wishing this really was his first time, though he's fairly sure that he couldn't do this if it was. Not so much just the experience of it, knowing her body well enough to read each touch and response, but the patience of it. He's pretty certain that if they had never done this before, he'd be way too turned on and keyed up to just relax into this and enjoy each touch.

A starving man can't savor the meal in front of him, and he wants to savor this.

Abby reached for his cravat and untied it, slipping it out of his collar, and then touched the base of his throat, fingers resting on the dip of his collar bone, and in any other situation that's not a touch he'd find particularly erotic, but right now, at the start of a long, steady build, he's enjoying it immensely.

He took a half step back, her fingers still on his throat, and cupped her face in his hands, thumb tracing over her bottom lip. "Did I tell you you're beautiful?"

"Not today." She kissed his thumb.

He shook his head. "Sorry. You are so beautiful. Every minute of today I've been thinking about it. That you're beautiful: your body, your mind, your kindness, and your joy, and all of it together is just so beautiful, and I love you so much that I can't begin to find words big enough for it. I don't think there are words big enough for it. I love you, Abby." He stepped closer to her again, and kissed the top of her ear. "Love your ears." He kissed her jaw. "Love your jaw." Kissed her shoulder. "Love your shoulders." Kissed her chest, and each breast. "Love these." He smiled up at her, nuzzling against her right breast. "Really love these." She grinned down at him, petting his face, and he turned his lips to her palm, for another kiss. "Love your hands."

Then he slipped a little further down, and kissed her belly. "Love your tummy." He slid his lips a few inches below her belly button, and slipped out of the game to whisper, "Love you, too, baby," before inching his lips to her hip, and tracing his way down her leg with kisses and cherishing words.

The slit on the peignoir came to mid-thigh. He kissed her knee, and then placed his fingertips on her leg, just below the cream colored lace edging the fabric, gently playing them over her skin, circling down to her knee and tracing back up again within the bounds of the slit. For a moment he just looked at it: his fingers, wedding band on the fourth one, on her leg. He looked up at her, and saw her watching his touch as intensely as he was.

"You're so soft."

She smiled, and he let his whole hand caress her thigh, reveling in the feel of her skin under his hand, and the immense intimacy of touching her like this. His woman, his _wife_, and he gets to put his hands on her, he alone gets to enjoy the pleasures of her body, and yeah, it's not pc, but that feeling of ownership hits him hard, and the feeling that she's given herself to him hits him even harder.

He wrapped both hands around her thigh, and traces them down her leg, slipping over her calf and cupping her ankle. He kissed her knee, and then gazed up at her. "You chose me. And I am going to spend the rest of my life making sure you're always glad you did that."

She knelt in front of him, fingers twining in his hair, and kissed him, slow and deep, lips lingering on his, tongue easing against his. Then she pulled back. "Timothy." Her safe word, and he's never heard her use it before, so he stopped everything and just looked at her.

"Nothing bad. I don't want this to be a game. Not tonight."

He took her left hand in his, kissed her ring finger just above her wedding ring, and stroked his fingers lightly down her arm, goosebumps rising in their wake.

"It's not. Just because I've felt it before, doesn't mean I don't marvel at how soft your skin is, let alone how good it feels against mine. And, you'll probably think this is dumb, but the fact that you're mine, really mine, and that I'm the only one who gets to do this, is hitting me so hard it's making me giddy."

"You think I don't feel that about you? My husband. My man, now and forever, wearing my ring. Yeah, I get it." She kissed him again, harder this time, deeper. "Mine!"

There's a visceral thrill that goes with that word, a palpable rush, and he pulled her closer to him, returning her kiss, putting all of his feelings into his touch.

Eventually she pulls back, stands up, letting him know to stand as well with a gentle tug on his hands. As he does she begins to unbutton his vest, fingers moving quickly over the buttons. A second later it was tossed on the floor, and she started on his shirt, taking her time this time, kissing each bit of chest or stomach as she undid each button.

When she got done she pulled the tails of the shirt out of his pants, but left the shirt on, and then stopped to just look at him.

He's not breathing hard, yet, though he was breathing faster than normal. His eyes moved over her body, and the expression on his face was a mix of hungry lust and transcendent joy.

Her fingers traced lightly, just the barest brush of the tips across his chest and stomach, and he inhaled quickly, small goosebumps raising on his skin, nipples going tight.

"Have I told you how much I love watching you like this?" Abby asked him.

He shook his head, and she pressed forward so he was sitting on the edge of the bed. She hiked up the skirt of the peignoir and straddled his thighs, resting her hands on his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his throat.

"I always have. You, half-dressed, hard, ready to make love to me, it's my favorite sight."

He grinned, hands settling against her hips.

"Part of it's the anticipation. I know what goodies are under that clothing, and enjoy seeing what we're going to get up to." She pushed his collar aside, and ran her tongue lightly over his right shoulder. "Part of it's the fact that you're drop dead sexy when you're half dressed. I've never seen a man do just a little skin better than you do." She pushed the other sleeve down his left arm, and bit gently on his shoulder. "But mostly it's that when you're like this, your face, your eyes, they're completely open. Everything you're feeling, everything you're thinking, it's on your face. You never shut me out when we make love, and I love that, cherish it."

She kissed his lips, and he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and from there he lost the details. He remembers the light on her skin, and the all-encompassing feeling of being adored, and he knows it was slow, that they took their time, undressing, kissing, making love with mouth, hands, and words.

And eventually he rolled onto his back, and she followed, straddling him. Her eyes were on his as she held him in place, pausing for a moment, waiting for him to nod, before sliding all the way down in one long, slick moment of exquisite contentment and joy.

She lay forward on his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her, both of them still and reveling in the completeness of it. He kissed her forehead, nose, and lips.

"I love you so much."

And like everything else this night it was slow, focused, pulling as much sensation and depth out of each stroke as possible.

He kept his eyes open, watching her, lit gold, hair wild, rising in falling on him, hands twined with his, head back, chest flushed, gasping with pleasure, clenching around him: his wife, best friend, partner, the mother of his child, and he felt so gloriously loved and so intensely whole and home.

"I love you, Tim, now and always, this life and the next, forever…" The words, the feeling of it, the pleasure of this, all crested in a rush of golden-white ecstasy blended with even more love and bliss.

When he came back to himself, she was lying on his chest, gently stroking his ring finger and wedding band.

Her forehead was within easy reach, so he kissed it. She kissed the bit of his shoulder that was under her mouth. And they didn't speak, just laid there, and enjoyed feeling that moment.

And eventually she pushed up, stretched across the bed and grabbed a few tissues, because no matter how perfect a moment is, it's still a moment, and the next moment has to come. So they cleaned up, and snuggled into each other, enjoying the fact that 1600 thread count sheets are insanely soft, and fell asleep.

And the next morning they found out that chocolate mousse and strawberries made a pretty good breakfast.


	114. A Present

He was putting the last bag into the trunk of Abby's Roadster when a familiar Minivan pulled up.

"Good, we didn't miss you," Jimmy said while getting out. Breena hopped out, holding a small, green gift bag in her hand. Molly was dozing in her car seat.

"What's up? We leave something at the hotel?" He didn't think that had happened, let alone that Palmer would end up with it, though if memory serves, they did stay at the Adams House last night because Breena's parents took Molly, and they wanted a night out, but he couldn't think of anything they might have left.

"Nah. Where's Abby?"

"Right here," she said, stepping out of the house, purse over her shoulder, locking the door.

Breena handed her the bag, when she got to them. "I couldn't not do this."

Abby stared at the bag, looking confused. They'd already gotten a wedding present, a really high end grill with all of the goodies, from the Palmers.

"Come on, open it!" Breena is grinning at them, beaming happiness in a way that puts Tim in mind of Abby in an especially good mood.

Abby did, and felt the smile start as she pulled apart black tissue paper. Tim was looking over her shoulder and also felt a grin creep over his face. It was a onesie. A tiny, black, skull covered onesie. Under it were little black shoes with green and purple spider webs.

"I knew if we waited, all of the Halloween baby gear would be gone, so we had to do it fast." Then Breena wrapped both of them in a hug. "Congratulations. Okay, we're not going to keep you from heading off, just had to give you that."

As Breena pulled back, Jimmy hugged both of them as well. "Have fun!"

Tim's grinning, just insanely happy at that moment. "Thank you."

"No problem," Palmer said, stepping back.

At least he looked like he was going to step back. A second later Abby was hugging both him and Breena, and babbling about how cool this was and how much she loved it.

* * *

A/N: Just a short one today. Honeymoon begins tomorrow. :)


	115. Things Don't Go As Planned

So there are things people usually do on their honeymoon. Sex. Sex is always on the list. Nice restaurants, that's usually part of it. Sight-seeing, sure. Snorkeling, according to Gibbs, that's popular, though they're heading toward Charleston, SC, which isn't exactly a snorkeling sort of place. Spending lots of time cuddled up, yep, very popular.

Downloading every pregnancy book available on Kindle and reading a bunch of them, well... That might not be common, but Tim sincerely doubts they're the first couple doing it.

And, while they had planned to do honeymooning type things while driving around the south, checking out Charleston, Savannah, Atlanta, back up to Richmond, and then home, something else needed to happen first, something that wasn't going to be pleasant, and until it happened, nothing else was going to be fun, at all.

See, the thing is, caffeine is a drug. And like nicotine, withdraw isn't pleasant.

And while caffeine and pregnant isn't forbidden, the amount of caffeine that's considered safe for a pregnant woman is about what Abby gets in two or three swallows with a CafPow.

At first, as they were driving down, and Abby was getting more annoyed and irritable, Tim was thinking that pregnant mood swings were kicking in a whole lot earlier than he would have liked, and he was starting to get scared. She was viciously jabbing the iPod, looking for new music, complaining about there being nothing worth listening to on it, and he gets they don't have the same musical tastes, but it was her iPod loaded with her music.

If she was this emotional five days before her period would have shown up, later on was going to be insane.

They had stopped for gas, and he'd gotten their usual driving fuel, gas for the car, CafPow for her, coffee for him, and then she burst into tears while rambling about poisoning their baby and torturing her with what she wasn't allowed to have, and he suddenly got what was going on.

She went to hide in the bathroom for a little bit. He got her a Non-CafPow, filled it two thirds full, and topped it off with CafPow, booked a few extra days in Charleston, bumped Savanah back, and cancelled Atlanta, fairly sure they weren't going to be doing much of anything the first few days.

He was waiting in the car when she came out, about ten minutes later.

She looked at him, eyes red, and half-smiled, looking sheepish. "Sorry, I lost it."

"Have you had any caffeine today?"

"No." It was three in the afternoon, about the time she would normally be on her third or fourth CafPow.

"Cold turkey is a bad plan." He handed her the cup. "It's two thirds decaf one third caf. When we get to Charleston, we'll do some research and figure out how to do this without killing you."

"Okay." She gulped down the not quite as CafPow, and sighed happily. "I can feel it tingling through me." She petted the cup. "Oh, I've missed you, my love!"

He looks at her, shakes his head, and says, "It's gonna be a long nine months."

* * *

The good thing was it was a really nice hotel suite. Comfortable, attractive, good view of the historic district from the one side, and French doors that opened onto the piazza overlooking a lush green garden surrounding a fountain on the other. Tim had a pretty good suspicion they were going to be spending a lot of time in there, and unfortunately, not in a sexy-we-didn't-get-out-of-bed-fucking-right-and-le ft sort of way.

They got there in time for dinner, had some, and started reading.

And yeah, cold turkey wasn't going to be easy, or pleasant, but given how much caffeine is supposed to be safe for a pregnant lady, and how long it would take to get Abby down to that level if she eased off at a rate that wouldn't hurt, well, let's put it this way, it's likely Abby would be wrapping up her maternity leave before she got down to the recommended maximum of 25 mg a day.

So, cold turkey it was.

And, for a good five minutes Tim thought about doing it with her. He's a good husband (or will die trying to be one) and a supportive pregnant father, so quitting caffeine with her seemed like a good plan.

Until he actually thought about it and then decided that if she was going to be irritable, in pain, and insanely craving a drug, there was no reason for him to be all those things, _at the same time_. Sure, he's not as hooked as she is, but he drinks six 20 ounce cups of coffee a day. To say he's got a major caffeine habit is not an exaggeration. He just looks like a piker because he lives with Abby and works with Gibbs.

He's going to have a much easier time being a good husband if he's not jonesing for a fix. When it comes down to it, he's thinking both of them insane at the same time is a bad plan.

So for right now, he can taper down a bit (maybe get down to four and a half, okay five, twenty ounce cups), and once she's off it and sane again, and probably after they get home because he's not seeing much reason for him to be annoying to everyone when they're on their honeymoon, he'll cut it out, too, because he is a good husband and a supportive pregnant father and it doesn't seem fair to him that she has to quit and he doesn't.

* * *

If there is anything lonelier than sitting alone on your honeymoon, Tim doesn't know what it could be. And yet, here he is, alone, on one of the swinging benches overlooking the harbor, reading the kindle version of What To Expect When You're Expecting, willing time to move faster.

Once they figured out cold turkey was the detox plan, all the rest of their plans got pushed back, and lay around and rest became the major goal for the next few days.

He'd been fine with the lay around and rest plan. Abby was hurting, caffeine withdraw causes headaches, and she was having a near migraine level experience, so she didn't want to move. He was just sitting in bed next to her and reading or writing. He thought that was going fine.

About two hours into it, she rolled over, looked at him and said, "Tim, I love you, I always will, but I'm a little insane right now, and just hearing you breathe and click the next button on your Kindle is pissing me off. Get out of here. Do something interesting. Come back with dinner and tell me about it six hours from now."

He was about to say, "Are you sure?" but she was already glaring at him pretty hard, so he scooped up his stuff, got dressed in the sitting room, and went out.

And while it's true that Charleston is filled with cool things, they're cool things he wants to do with her, not on his own.

So, he kind of failed on the do interesting things part of the assignment, but he figures he can make something up if she asks him about it.

* * *

He opened the door quietly. It's dim in their bedroom; the sun's not quite down yet, but it's close, and she doesn't have a light on. But he sees her roll over when he opens the door.

"Hey," he says, sitting down on the side of the bed.

"Hi."

"You feeling any better?"

She sat up slowly. "Yeah. Still crabby and headachy, but it's not as bad as it was earlier."

"Good. I brought us dinner. You want to eat?"

"Yeah." She stands up, heading toward the sitting room. "What did you get?"

He followed her out, pointing to the large collection of bags on the coffee table. "A little bit of a lot of different things. I wasn't sure what you might want, and wasn't sure if we'd be going out again soon. So..."

Part of the reason for picking Charleston is that it's a great food town. There's a little bit of everything there, and most of it is supposed to be good. On the way back to the hotel, he'd more or less popped into any restaurant that looked even remotely interesting and ordered something to go. He had everything from Asian fusion to soul food.

And doing that allowed him to come up with something of a version of what interesting thing he might have done, because he didn't bother to use the GPS to find his way back to the hotel, and got a little lost. So he can tell her about wandering around Charleston.

Opening all of the boxes and grazing through what he had brought seemed to perk her up. A thought occurred to him. "Did you eat anything today?"

They'd had breakfast, but she booted him out around what should have been lunch time.

"No."

It's true that most of the time they just sort of grab food whenever they can. Breakfast is pretty constant, but eating during the rest of the day tends to happen whenever, and both of them miss meals right and left, often making up for them with coffee or CafPow.

"Mental note, if you aren't constantly sucking down CafPows, you need to eat real food."

"I wasn't hungry."

"I don't get hungry when my blood sugar drops, either. But I do get crabby, and I'm guessing that was part of my kindle annoying you."

"Maybe." She shrugged and took a bite of a sandwich. "Oh, God, Tim, this is the best thing ever! What is this?" She holds it out, and he takes a bite.

"I have no idea, but you're right." He looked at the box it had been in, and then the bag the box had been in, and hoped that it would trigger a memory of ordering it, but it didn't. He took another bite. It was salty, sweet, crispy, savory, buttery, meaty, and just mind-meltingly good. He snagged one of the fries that were in the box with it. They were long and very thin and crispy and also amazingly good.

"When you feel up to going out, we'll go back and figure it out. Have you had one of these fries?" He held one out to her, and she ate it from his fingers.

"Ohhhh!" She took another bite of the sandwich. "It's duck. I can taste that."

"Okay, I remember now. It's duck confit with blueberry honey, on whatever sort of bread that is, apparently buttered and grilled crispy, with Belgian style fries."

"Oh my god! We have got to go back there."

He took the bag the food came in, folded it up, and put it in the pocket of his jacket. "So we can find it again." Then sat down next to her, and took another bite of the sandwich.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, chewing happily. "So what did you do today?"

He told her about walking through Charleston, sitting at the Harbor, and watching the butterflies. It's not so much that he's got a thing for butterflies, but November in DC is basically winter, and down here it's getting cooler, but it's still warm, and the flowers are still in bloom, and there are butterflies everywhere flitting from flower to flower. And watching them flutter around, along with the palm trees, was just a really vivid sign that he was nowhere even remotely like home.

Honestly, he's having a hard time believing they're in the US. It's just so tropical here. He tells her about the brightly colored buildings and the way everything feels like the Virgin Islands or the Bahamas.

They finished the sandwich and fries, and he poked around in the bags until he found the one that had the bread pudding with hard sauce in it, and that was awfully good, too.

So, they were sitting on the floor, in front of the coffee table, backs against the sofa, feeling comfortably full, and well, Tim was in a pretty good mood, but Abby was starting to get irritable again, and he could feel her tensing under the arm he had around her shoulders so he said, "Let's go to bed, you lay down, I'll give you a massage."

"Are you trying to get sex?" She's giving him the _don't even try it look._ Which up until this point he's never seen in relation to sex. Messing with Major Mass Spec, touching her computer while she's got it working on something, let alone unpacking her doll collection (he's not allowed to touch it, at all), but not sex.

He rolls his eyes and flashes her his_ Really?_ look. "Yes, but not tonight. Sooner this crap is out of you, the sooner you'll be happy and fun and interested in sex again, and I think we'd both like that. So, even though you're all prickly and doing your best impression of a pissed off porcupine, I am offering to rub your entire naked body, slowly, and with a lot of care, because doing that will help your body produce endorphins, which it probably needs, and help you flush the caffeine out faster, and then, even though, as I said, you'll be both naked, covered in oil, and I will have been touching you for at least an hour, I will not expect any sex from you."

And for the first time since their wedding night, Abby laughed.

"I love you."

He smiled, quickly. "You damn well better. On the bed, now!"

She got up, pulling off her clothing as she headed to the other room, and lay down on the bed on her stomach, still smiling. "What if I want sex after you get done?" she asked as he fiddled around with their luggage looking for the oil.

"Then you better be nice to me. We're married now, so I'm not just some booty call for when you're feeling frisky."

She laughs again. And he's very happy to see she's starting to come back.

"Did we bring massage oil?"

"I remember packing some. I think it's in the bag with the toothpaste, shampoo, and soap. Not the toys."

"Why would it be in there?"

"Because it can spill. The lube is in there, too."

"Okay, that makes sense." He heads into the bathroom and locates both the massage oil and the lube, and also sees some Tylenol, and bring all three of them out. No he's not thinking there's going to be sex tonight, but he doesn't see any reason to make two trips, either.

He sits next to her. "So, what still hurts?"

She sighs, posture slumping. "Everything. Headache's the worst part, but I hurt all over. It's like a full body headache. Like... you know how you ache when you have the flu?"

"Yeah."

"Like that."

"Yuck!"

"Yeah."

He rests his hand on her shoulder. "I'm really sorry you're hurting."

"I know."

"Want some Tylenol?"

"It's got caffeine in it."

He got up and put the bottle back, saying, "Why would they do that?"

"Who knows?"

A few seconds later he was back, straddling her hips. He poured the oil into his right hand, and then rubbed it between his palms, warming it up. He laid both hands on the back of her neck, then slowly slipped them down her shoulders and arms, a long, gentle stroke designed to just feel good. He's great at working the kinks out, the kind of touch that hurts good, but that's not what he's aiming for tonight. Tonight he's just petting her, letting his hands soothe over her in slow, gentle-firm strokes, starting at her neck and working his way down her body.

And after an hour of it, when he lifted his hands off her feet, she was asleep.

So he got up, brushed his teeth, debated jerking off, because naked, oil covered Abby stretched out under him as his hands rub all over her body has him pretty hard, but doing that on his honeymoon is so terribly depressing that he doesn't care how horny he gets, it's just not going to happen, so he snuggled around her.

This really wasn't how he thought their honeymoon was going to go.

He kissed her shoulder, breathing in her scent, remembered why they were doing this as his arm wrapped around her, smiled, a little, and went to sleep.


	116. Playtime

Day three Abby woke up, looked at Tim, still sleeping, and felt really good. Really, really good. Like, the kind of good she had felt when she woke up on their wedding day. She smiled, a wide happy grin, slipped out of bed, and went to brush her teeth and use the bathroom.

Okay, so the honeymoon hadn't gotten off to the sexiest start, but she had some things planned, and it was high time to start doing them.

She hadn't let him touch one of her bags because that's where her goodies were. As he slept, she quietly grabbed it and took it into the bathroom.

The first of the goodies in it, which she had intended to surprise him with on the first night, but hadn't because the headache was pretty awful by that point, was the next step in the theme of things Tim didn't usually get to see her in. She has lace teddies. He's bought them for her. So she knows he likes them on her. But this one, in light, sheer baby pink, with a matching g-string and thigh high stockings, also in baby pink, is a whole lot frillier and more femme then what she usually wears or what he'd get her.

She brushed out her hair, and then wet the roots and fluffed it up a little. Bedhair, just slightly more attractive than real bedhair.

And then she waited. She stood, leaning against the doorway to the bathroom, staring at him.

Tim's sleeping on his stomach. He does that when she leaves the bed, rolls from his side onto his stomach into where she had been. It's fairly warm so the blankets cover up to his low back, leaving her with an excellent view of the top half of him.

Part of her wants to get back in that bed, run her tongue from his earlobe, down his neck, to his arm, kissing the tattoo on his right arm, the one they have in common.

Part of her wants him to see her in this before they touch.

Part of her is just enjoying watching him. Abby is a connoisseur of Tim's body types. She's seen just about all of them and enjoys them all, too. Which is not to say she doesn't have a preference when it comes to the different shapes of Tim. And the way he's been looking the last six months or so is definitely her favorite. Apparently, cutting most of the sugar out of his diet did result in a very fine looking Tim. But this time he didn't go overboard, he's not the scary skinny he was a few years ago, but he's quite a bit leaner than he was when they started dating the second time.

And from the looks of it, her eyes trace down his back and arms, a lot of sex is good for upper body development. He's not cut, no washboard abs like Jimmy, (Of course, she knows how much time Jimmy spends at the gym to get that body, and if she's got a choice between Tim with her and a less developed body, or Tim at the gym and ripped, she'll take Tim at home.) but he's noticeably stronger than he was when they started dating, and she certainly appreciates the fact that he can pick her up and keep her up long enough to fuck her senseless, let her come down from her orgasm, and then go for another round after that. And really, that's all the upper body strength as any guy needs.

She's grinning at him, thinking about licking down his spine, biting gently on the crest of his hip, which is just peeking out from under the blanket, when he opens an eye and looks at her. She sees that eye travel from the top of her head, down to her toes, and back up again. A smile spreads on his face as he pushes himself up.

He stands up, pulls her out of the doorway, quickly kisses her cheek and says, "Two minutes," before vanishing into the bathroom himself.

She kneels on the bed, hands on her thighs, arms pushing her breasts up and out, waiting for him, and two minutes later he's back out again, looking at her like she's the most delicious thing he's ever seen.

He stands in front of her, naked, half-hard, eyes raking slow, hot trails over her skin. If there was ever a man who understood how to eye fuck, it's Tim.

"I take it you're feeling better."

She grinned, raised up on her knees, wrapping her arms around his neck, and kissed him long and hard.

"Yeah."

"Good!" He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her tighter to him as he kissed her back with just as much enthusiasm as she had shown him a few minutes earlier. He pulled away for a second. "You're all dressed up, anything in specific you want?"

"Lots and lots of things, but we've got lots of time, too."

"Then what should we start with?"

She wiggled encouragingly against him, feeling half-hard perk into full hard, then leaned back in his arms, and began to rub her breasts, through the pink lace, keeping her movements slow and deliberate, using her whole hand as she cupped, lifted, stroked and rolled, knowing that watching her do that would drive him crazy.

His eyes were glued to her hands and breasts as she said, "Maybe it's just my imagination, I mean, it shouldn't be happening this soon, but they just feel really full and sensitive today, and you know how when you play with them, I feel it in my clit, too? And I'm wondering if you can get me off by playing with them."

His eyes lit up and rose to meet hers, while he grinned wildly and said, "Let's find out!"

His right hand stayed firmly against her back, giving her something to lean into, while his lips trailed down her neck and shoulder. He tugged gently on the shoulder strap of the teddy with his teeth, causing the lace to rub against her breast.

She hadn't thought the lace was particularly rough, but it's not smooth either, it isn't satin or silk, so there's a definite friction to the way it's sliding over her skin.

And it's a friction she's appreciating. She wasn't lying when she said they felt bigger and more sensitive. There's a sort of pleasant heaviness that's just craving touch right now, and this light, rough, almost scrape is making that more intense.

She feels his fingers on her belly, slipping up from under the teddy, feathering over the skin on her ribs, tickling a little, making her skin heat, and drawing her attention to her torso, but not touching where she's craving his hands.

"That's not my breast."

He let go of the strap, and that was unfortunate, because the tugging stopped, but the wet of his lips on her collarbone as he said, "I know," felt pretty fabulous, too. "I'll get there. As you said, we've got lots of time."

His right hand stayed on her back, but in a heartbeat his left was hooked under her knees and she was on her back on the bed before she even knew he was thinking about doing it.

Tim hopped onto the bed, stretching out beside her, resting his head on his right hand, and used his left to stroke the edges of her teddy, getting the scoop of the top, the straps along her shoulder, and the lacy frill along her stomach.

"I like this color on you," he said as his forefinger began a long, slow circle of her nipple. He bent the finger, so his nail caught and rasped along the lace, adding an almost stutter-y quality to the touch. "It's really pretty."

He raked all four fingers lightly over her breast, across her sternum, to the other one, pulling the fabric tight in the process, tugging it a little further on her breast, more gentle friction across her nipple.

"You know what's even prettier?" he asked, between wet soft kisses on her shoulder and arm.

"What?"

"The way you squirm when I do this." He laved his tongue along the scoop neck of the teddy while giving her nipple a quick flick with his middle finger. And she did squirm when he did it, arching into the touch, trying to get more pressure, because this teasing was sweet, but it wasn't nearly enough.

"Tim!"

"Yeah?" He traced his tongue over her collar bone, slipping it down to just dip between her breast, and back up to her lips for a kiss as his fingers went back to that long, slow circling.

"Fuck," she breathed it as he sucked on her lower lip, his whole hand cupping her breast, squeezing it gently, pulling his fingers over the flesh to caress her nipple.

He pulled back and grinned. "I certainly hope so." He moved quickly, yanking the g-string off, settling between her legs, ending with his weight on his elbows, lips on hers as he brushed his chest against the tips of her nipples. Abby wished she wasn't wearing the teddy, she could feel the heat and pressure of his chest, but not the smooth slide of it, and she wanted the slip of his skin on hers.

Of course, it wasn't just his chest that was touching her. The tip of his cock was also slipping along her, gently nudging her lips, rubbing against them slick and hot.

"So, how specific were you thinking on the 'get you off by playing with them' thing. Like, if I do this…" and he thrust into her while closing his lips over her nipple and sucking hard, "does that count? Or…" and he pulled out slowly, as his teeth grazed the wet fabric, 'were you thinking just touching your breasts?"

"God, Tim!" That's too much of a good choice. He's slowly rocking into her, while he blows on her nipple, hot breath over wet fabric and needy skin.

"Or maybe…" He pulled all the way out and slid the length of his penis along her clit while licking slowly over her nipple.

"Show off."

He grinned at her. "Of course." And then rolled back to her side. "Sit up."

She did, and he pulled the teddy off, tossing it on the floor.

"I thought you liked it."

"I do. And when you ask me to get you off playing with your ears, I will happily let you keep wearing it."

He sat back against the headboard and patted his lap. Abby straddled him, gently rubbed against his dick, slipping her pussy along it, but not letting him in, and then sat on his lap, leaving it pressed against her.

"I guess that answers my question."

"For now." She rose on her legs an inch, rubbing her clit against him as she did it. "Though I may change the rules at some point."

He settled back, shifting the pillows some, and then spread his legs a little further apart, spreading her a little further, "In case you decide to change the rules soon." And then bent forward to kiss her breast.

When she's sitting in his lap, Abby's nipples are right at lip level. His left hand cupped and stroked the right one, while his lips blanketed the right with wet, open mouthed kisses. He kept his eyes on hers, making sure she's watching him as he sucked her nipple between his lips, mouthing along it wet and gentle, pulling back to lick it delicately, just the tip of his tongue circling it, followed by a firm bite to the underside of her breast.

Watching him is driving her crazy, the way he's looking at her, hot sex in his gaze, while his tongue rubs and his lips pull, and she caught the wicked little glint in his eye right before he bit, and that sharp contrast to wet and soft made her jerk.

He groaned when she did that, arching against her, while squeezing her breast, laying his tongue against where he had just bitten, leaving a wide, wet patch, and the blowing it cool and dry.

Then he switched, hand on her left, mouth on her right. Like always when he plays with her breasts she could feel him do it, feel the deep satisfaction of his touch in her chest, feel her breasts go heavy and ache with a heady pleasure, and at the same time she feels it in her clit. No sensation of touch, just the sensation of the pleasure of touch. Her head fell back, and her hips started a slow roll, adding direct contact, multiplying the effect, pressing against him in a way that made her whole body feel hundreds of shades of golden perfect.

He nibbled over her breast and said, "Turn around."

While she did so, he scooted a bit further away from the headboard, so he could lean back. "On me, cowgirl style."

She did, sliding down him, very glad for the extra sensation. She was about half way down when his hands closed on her hips. "There. Lean back. Your back on my chest."

"Ohhhh… fuck…" That position, angle, and depth meant one thing. And then he started to do it. Short, shallow thrusts that got her g-spot over and over, as his fingers twisted and stroked her nipples.

God, it was good! All sorts of good. His cock hitting at that exact right angle, and his fingers pulling, making her gasp each breath, body tightening on his, seeking more sensation.

And then he stopped, just holding the thrust, keeping up the pressure, but ending the friction, as his fingers went to light, feather touches over her nipples.

She was squirming, trying to get him to move, finding her own friction if he wasn't going to do it for her, and he bit her shoulder lightly.

"New trick." Tim sat up. "Off of me." And straddled her, and for a moment she thought he was going to press her breasts together and rub off between them, but he didn't. Instead he took the tip of his penis and circled her nipples with it, stroking her with that soft, wet, hot flesh, making both of them very happy with that sensation.

A minute later he was licking that wetness off. Lapping at her. Murmuring about how good she tasted as his cock rubbed against her hip, and his fingers stroked her pussy, deliberately avoiding her clit.

He's told her about being so hard he could feel his pulse in his dick, and she gets it now. She's never been more aware of her clit than she is now. And it does feel like it's pulsing, like every touch to her breasts is ramping up the desire another notch.

Never in a million years would Abby have ever thought about Tim using his eyelashes on her breasts, but by that point they were so hard, so flushed, so sensitive, that the light fluttering of his lashes against her nipples was incredible. But it wasn't enough. It was like the ghost of a touch. Or maybe the memory of one.

It was enough to make her squirm, make her moan and arch and beg to get off, but it wasn't enough to do it

He pulled back, bit her nipples, hard enough to really get her attention, not hard enough to mark, and then sat back against the headboard and pulled her into his lap.

She slid down him with a very loud groan, at least she thought it was loud, it was hard to tell because he was louder, but the fullness, the added stretch and friction made her teeth clench and her hands fist, and this: wet, hot tongue on her nipples, teeth pulling them, cock filling her, the long slip of slick friction, and his thumb on her clit, set her off and made her see stars.

When she came back to herself she wasn't sure if he had gotten off or not. He still felt pretty hard but it takes him a few minutes to lose his erection. She was really wet, of course, she was also really wet when she slid onto him.

"Did you?"

He kissed her gently. "Yeah."

"Good. I got a bit fuzzy there at the end and wasn't sure."

He grinned at that, looking pretty smug.

She poked him.

"Hey, you just told me I made you come so hard you couldn't tell if _I_ got off." He giggled at that, still looking smug and very pleased with himself. "And, since me getting off isn't exactly subtle, that just makes my day."

She laughed, too, and then kissed him, and reached for the tissues. "So, what do you want for breakfast?"

"Pussy."

She rolled her eyes, smacked him gently on the chest, chuckled, and slipped off, handing him a tissue while wiping herself up. "After. I need some real food."

"Okay. Room service?"

"You planning on keeping me occupied until the food shows up?"

There was a huge grin on his face as he said, "I might be."

"Nope. Shower, out, food, show me at least one interesting thing you saw yesterday, and then all the pussy you can eat for lunch."

"I can get on board with that plan."

* * *

Strolling around Charleston, pretty Goth wife by his side, arm around her shoulder, her parasol shading both of them from the bright, late fall sun, morning sex putting a spring in both of their steps, Tim found himself thinking that _this_ was exactly how he had been hoping his honeymoon to go.


	117. A Collar

It took them a few days to work the kinks out of the care and feeding of a now decaf (and slightly pregnant) Abby.

Regular food became very important. She couldn't skip meals, and tended to be happier with a somewhat constant stream of small snacks. Which made sense, after all it wasn't Diet CafPow she was sucking down every day. Fortunately, Charleston being a good food town meant they didn't have any issues in finding a steady stream of yummy things.

Afternoon naptime really helped, too.

By dinnertime at the end of the first "good" day she was dragging around, feeling pretty crabby, and the headache was back. So the next day they dialed down the sightseeing, hit the aquarium, had lunch, went back to the hotel for some sex, and a nap, and noticed that by dinnertime she was still feeling pretty good. So naptime went onto the list of things to do, and that seemed to help a whole lot.

Neither of them was sure if the sleeping twelve hours a day was just a side effect of no more caffeine, or if it was a sign that their little dude was indeed on board, but it made Abby feel better, and Tim certainly didn't mind a schedule rich in sex and naps (which also made it easier for him to cut back on his own caffeine consumption), so they both did well with it.

And there were a few points where she was staring longingly at his coffee, which if you consider how much Abby doesn't like coffee, was a very strong sign that she really wanted a fix, but she didn't drink any, and he did a fairly good job of remembering not to drink it in front of her.

So by the morning of the last day in Charleston, she was feeling pretty good, and was fairly certain she'd keep feeling fairly good, so another of the "treats" in her bag of goodies came out.

When Tim woke up, she was wearing her collar.

Granted Abby in a collar isn't anything new. She wears a collar all the time. But this one, that he gave her for Christmas, is special. And while it looks a whole lot like most of her other collars, (As a matter of fact, this is the collar that goes with the wrist cuff he wears on his left wrist. Since she didn't buy them as a set, it took hours of concerted effort and mad google fu to find it.) this is the one she wears when she wants him to Dom.

There's being the dominant partner in whatever game they're playing, and then there's actually Doming, which is very different.

He smiles seeing her waiting for him. They haven't done it in months, but it's one of his favorite games.

She's kneeling at the end of the bed, waiting patiently for him. He kisses her for a long minute, and then pulls back, taking another moment to get into the right mindset for this.

"Come here."

She does, settling on the spot on the mattress he patted.

"Did you bring your butterfly?" That's something else he got her, though that one wasn't a Christmas present. It's a bullet shaped vibrator that fits into a soft silicon sheath in a sort of harness that looks, honestly, a little like a jock strap. It keeps the vibrator on her clit, but doesn't block his access to her vagina or anus. And it has a wireless remote.

She nods.

"You may speak when I ask you questions."

She nods again.

"Go get it."

She hops off the bed and returns with it a moment later. He takes it from her and places it on the bed, next to his hip.

"Have you had a shower, yet?" Her hair isn't wet, but he also doesn't know how long she's been awake.

"No."

He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it, and he led them to the bathroom.

Part of the reason they haven't done this in months is because, while it's fun, it's a mindset that Tim doesn't have an easy time switching into and out of. Actually, that's not true, getting into it isn't an issue. He can usually get into it in less than a minute. Getting back out of it is the issue. Which is a polite way of saying he really likes it, but he also knows that always being in charge isn't a good plan for his long term happiness and continued employment at NCIS. For example, he knows he can dominate Tony and Ziva, because if there were ever people who did well with: have high standards, explain what you want, pet the person when they meet those standards, spank them when they don't, it's Gibbs' team. And Tim's good at that, and he's got a few more tricks than Gibbs does when it comes to the petting part of the equation. (And no, when he's thinking of Tony and Ziva, he's not thinking of _that_, just that he's more willing to show he's pleased when people do a good job than Gibbs is.)

But if he were to do it, it'd topple the apple cart, screw up the team dynamics, and make things tense between him and Tony again, possibly make things awkward between Tony and Ziva, and probably mess things up with him and Gibbs (because Gibbs is the Dom for their team). So, since he can't slide out of this on a moment's notice, they don't do it unless he's got a few days between Doming and work.

And of course, he's not due back to work in over a week. Plenty of time to get back to being Tim again.

So he smiles, turns on the water, and waits for it to warm up, Abby standing next to him, waiting for him to make the next decision.

It has not escaped Tim's attention that Abby suddenly has ten more inches of hair than she used to. He's been appreciating how she looks with that long spill of black and red hair down her back. Really enjoying it. However, since he's appreciating it, he'd also like to keep it nice for as long as possible, and he has absolutely no idea of how to do that. One of his pet joys is washing her hair, but he doesn't want to mess this up.

"Kneel."

She did so, head bent, and he proceeded to pet her hair at his leisure, really exploring how it feels. The extensions are soft, warm, and feel like real hair, and also a little oddly nubby when there meet up at her scalp. He's not loving that texture, but if that's the cost of long hair on Abby…

"How do you take care of this?"

"Just like normal hair. Be gentle when you wash it, don't rub too hard on the scalp, extra rinse time to make sure all the soap gets out."

"Okay." He reaches his hand into the shower, and the water is feeling nicely warm. He kneels behind her, lifting her hair off her neck, and gently kisses her nape above and below the collar, then unsnaps it (like his cuff it's got two silver snaps for the closure). He's done this enough times to have mastered unsnapping it, letting it fall so that it drapes over her shoulder, and then slowly dragging it off, letting it slip over her throat and shoulder, and every time he does that, she shivers. Today was no exception.

"Into the shower."

She stands, gracefully, and slips in. He unsnaps his cuff, places both of the leather goods on the sink, and follows her in a second later.

Tim couldn't tell you why he likes washing Abby's hair, but he's got some pretty good guesses. There are some pretty obvious reasons, like the way she moans when he does it. That's on the list. It's time where he get to touch her while she's wet and naked, both of which are very good things. He thinks the heart of it might be that it's a very caring gesture, comforting, very intimate. It's not the sort of thing you do with someone you're just casually with.

"Cross-legged, on the floor." And she complies. "Any sounds you want to make, you may." They've done this where he didn't give her permission to make noise, just to see what it was like, and really, a good third of the thrill of making love to her is hearing her respond to him. Her silent while he went down on her was like a pretzel without salt, not bad, but bland.

The only time silent is fun is if there's someone else nearby, and when that's true silent gets overwhelmed by don't-get-caught.

He pours a little of the shampoo into his hand and gets to work. A big part of how he usually does this is his fingers squirming on her scalp, rubbing into the skin, and pressing his thumbs into the tight muscles where her neck and head connect. He can still do that part of it, though the scalp rub just got a lot less intense.

But she still makes that very pleased, deep, satisfied moan when his thumbs go to work on her neck, and like always that sound settles in his dick, perking it up, getting it very interested in seeing if more sounds like that might be coming out of her anytime soon.

And they do. He rubs and kneads her shoulders while hot water beats down on both of them, and she makes soft little sighs and deep happy moans, and he's fairly sure that what he's doing doesn't feel quite that good, but he doesn't much care if she's just doing this to turn him on because that's all sorts of good, too.

By the time the last of the conditioner has rinsed free of her hair, he's completely hard and thinking that her sitting on the floor of the shower puts her mouth in an awfully good position.

It's true that the first time he did this, he blushed so hard he thought his head was going to burst into flame. Growing up with Penny and dating a sociologist who focused on gender roles in pre-industrial cultures at MIT meant that he'd had some fairly intensive training in how to treat women properly, and saying 'Get down on your knees and suck,' was more or less on the top of the list of things that a well-trained feminist guy just didn't do. But it's also true that the idea of saying 'Get down on your knees and suck,' made him so hard he could feel his pulse in his dick.

And for a long time he felt bad about that, and never, ever did it, let alone suggested doing it, until the first time he and Abby dated, and she asked him what his kinkiest fantasy was. When he explained why he was blushing so hard, she rolled her eyes, pointed to the door to her bedroom, and said, "Outside that door, you get bonus points for understanding privilege and gender bias, but that stays on the other side of that door." Then she kissed him and asked, "Does it make you feel bad when I tell you to eat me out?"

"No."

"Do you think getting on your knees and licking my pussy is demeaning?"

"No! Of course not!" He looked, and was, horrified by that idea.

"I tell you to do it, does it mean I don't respect you, or see you as an object?"

"No. Just means you like oral and want me to do it for you."

"Then why should you feel bad about liking the same thing?"

When that clicked, he got a whole lot happier about his interests.

Abby's sitting in front of him, waiting patiently, so he smiles at her, caresses her face, and leans against the back wall of the shower, legs spread shoulder-width apart.

"Suck me."

And she does. Eyes open, looking up at him, mouth soft, and red, and wet, and so insanely good.

He settles in to watch her do him. There's nothing else like this, getting to feel her and watch her do it. She holds him by the base of his cock and spends a good five minutes just licking, sucking, and playing with the tip, keeping her lips tight and letting him slip between them, providing the feel of that first tight, shallow thrust of sex, knowing how much he loves seeing her mouth on his dick, her lips slipping over it, and her tongue wet and hot rubbing against it.

She moans while she does it, and it's a little hard to hear over the water and the fact that he's not exactly being quiet either. But he can feel it, and that adds to his pleasure.

"Deeper, no hands."

He loves her hands on their own. Loves when she blows him and uses her hand at the same time, even more. It's all wet and slick and sucking and tight, it's all so good. And that's why he's said no hands. Just mouth takes longer. It's a slower build, more diffuse, less friction, but when he comes it's more diffuse, too. He gets to feel it all through his body.

Her hands rest on his knees, and she pulls him deeper into her mouth, sucking harder, her tongue rubbing the underside of his dick. His hands clench and his head falls back against the wall of the shower. He's cursing softly, letting her know in explicit and obscene detail how good it feels.

Her molars add a little sharp scrape to the smooth wet of her mouth, and he loves that sensation. It's like fingernails down his back while fucking. It's just brilliant on so many levels, and he feels really sorry for the guys who are so sensitive they can't take this.

Her hands are clenched on his knees, and he notices that, so he says, "You can touch yourself if you want, but no getting off."

He feels her right hand leave his knee, but he can't see her play with herself with it. Her sucking him is in the way, and while it's true that Abby playing with herself is one of his favorite sights, her sucking him off is even better.

He watches, breathing hard, jaw clenched, thighs tight, riding his body's pleasure at her touch.

The one thing he isn't doing is thrusting. He wants to, would love to, but he's not. Part of being a good Dom is knowing what the sub wants, what she can take, and where her boundaries are, and he knows that if she's not using her hands it's way too easy for him to choke her, and neither of them are going to be happy if he gags her.

So he doesn't. He lets her set the pace, and while he's touching her face, hair, and shoulders, he's just touching, he's not grabbing or forcing or anything like that. He gets the idea of breath play, but he's not comfortable doing that unless he's completely in control, and his dick in her mouth isn't conducive to completely in control.

He watches her do it, seeing if she looks like her jaw is getting sore. There's only so long she can do this, and he doesn't want to push her too far, especially since this is just the opening round for today, but he's not catching the tell-tale tension in her face, so he says, "Slower, all the way down. You can use your hand to get the right angle."

Abby can deep throat, though this isn't a great position for it. (Sixty-nine works way better for that, but that also tends to shoot his concentration to hell and gone.) But she takes hold of him, pulling his dick down a bit, and then slips it, slowly all the way into her mouth, and he groans so loudly she blinks and smiles. (At least as well as she can with her mouth open wide. Her eyes look really amused.)

He can feel himself starting to fall apart. A slow orgasm is a thing of joy and beauty, and the feeling of just easing over the edge is glorious, but he's not quite there yet, and he's debating if he wants her to swallow of if he wants to cum on her.

It's not something she really likes. In fact, in the shower is pretty much the only time he's allowed to do it. (From what he can tell, it's the only one of his kinks she's not enthusiastic about.) And until getting back from Afghanistan, he didn't know he liked it. But there's something about seeing it on her skin that just does it for him.

And if there was ever a time where it'd be okay…

His touch on her shoulder lets her know that he's going to turn so his body blocks the spray from the shower. She figures out where this is going, winks, lets him know it's okay, and turns with him.

"Finish me with your hands. Want to cum on your chest." He never gets her face. He knows from his own experience that if it gets into your eyes it burns.

So she did, a few fast strokes, and he was humming with pleasure, feeling it spark through his whole body, making him shake and twitch, as he watched his cum land on her in thick, drippy stripes.

When his heart calmed back down, and his breathing was closer to normal, he pulls her to her feet, and kisses her long and hard, petting her hair and back, then whispering sweet words of how happy he is with her and how much he loves her and what an excellent job she's done at making him come.

She purrs at him, quivering in a pleased sort of way, and he turns her into the spray of the shower, letting it rinse away his cum, and then he gets down on his knees and kisses her properly.

She's wet, and hot, and very turned on, and he makes sure to do a good job. He keeps his tongue soft and light, the sort of touch that just hints of better things to come, an almost exploring touch, while his fingers hold her wide open.

And when she's thrusting against him, hands clenching in his hair, loudly groaning between a chorus of "Fuck Tim! Just like that!" he stops and stands up.

He kisses her mouth, whispering against her lips, "I promise, you will get off, and it will be glorious, but not yet, not now. We're going to go out, see Charleston, maybe see a movie, and I am going to play with you all day. And when you are so turned on you can barely breathe, when you are shaking from head to toe, sobbing for release, when every muscle in your body is so tight it could snap, when every thought in your head is devoted to getting fucked and getting off, then I'll plunge deep into you, fingers rubbing your clit hard and fast, and make you come so intensely you'll pass out on my cock." He kisses hot and wet on her ear. "And then I'll do it again." Another kiss, sucking her ear lobe. "And maybe, if you're good, and if I haven't gotten off yet, I'll do it one more time."

She's quivering against him as he says that, arms wrapped tight around his neck.

He gives her one last, quick kiss, this time on her lips, and says, "Let's get out of the shower and dressed."


	118. The Nature of the Dom

Tim stood in front of their luggage looking at what they had brought.

Abby sat on the bed, smiling, wondering what he'd pick out.

It had taken him a while to get to the point where he was really comfortable doing this, but once he got there… Well, she's never been disappointed at how wickedly creative he can be when he sets his mind to it.

And with the butterfly on the bed next to her, and the way he's sorting through her clothing, and debating the kilt or a pair of jeans, she's pretty sure that today is going to be a whole lot of fun.

The first time Tim Dommed, back the first time they dated, it took Abby a little while to figure out what was going on.

It was the fourth time they got together, after 'the hinkey thing,' which had been excellently hinkey, and she was looking for a way to say thank you, because he was the first guy who didn't completely freak out about the play-dead-in-the-coffin thing, so they'd been on her sofa, making out, and she asked him what his kinkiest fantasy was, because no matter what it might be, she was game for it.

He stopped kissing her, blushed scarlet, and tried to brush it off.

That just got her more curious because this was the guy who tied her up the first time they had sex, so if he was blushing like that it had to be way out in left field, and curious slid to even more turned on, so she kept whispering questions about what it could be, suggestions, each one hotter than the last, and just talking about it had him majorly turned on.

Finally he closed his eyes, bit his lip, and took a really deep breath, held it, and let it out.

"You really want to know?"

"Yeah." By that point she had images of hot wax, breath play, and maybe some cross dressing in mind because he kept saying no to all the things she was coming up with.

s His shirt was off but he still had his pants on. He stood up, a few inches in front of the sofa, where she was lying, and said, "Sit up and face me."

"Okay." She sat up, turned, tucking her knees between his legs, and just looked up at him, licked her lips, smiling, waiting, which he seemed to like.

Then he said, voice low, little nervous, "Unbuckle my belt."

So she did. Slipping the leather through the metal, and then through his belt loops. He was tenting his pants, though he was also blushing so hard she wasn't sure how he had enough blood in his body to keep him that hard and that flushed.

When she finished with his belt she looked up at him and grinned.

"Take your bra off." She reached back, grabbing the fabric. "Slowly." So she did it slowly, easing it down her arms, holding the cups in place before slipping them away.

He spent a long minute just staring at her, then closed his eyes, took another deep breath, opened them, looked her in the eye, and said, voice steady, low, hot, "Take my cock out and suck it."

Which was fine by her. Though she was wondering if he was just making something up on the fly, because as kinky fantasies went, it was kind of a dud. She'd given him blow jobs before, and yeah, he really appreciated them. (She had a sinking suspicion that his previous girlfriend had been awfully stingy in the oral sex department, but didn't ask about it until years later, after they had finished dating, when they had been hanging out and talking about exes with Jimmy and Tony, too, and yeah, she had been right. Helen had only done it once over the course of the year they dated, and then spit. Which made Abby want to go find her and smack her upside the back of the head, because that's no way to treat a man, and was especially no way to treat her McGee.) But, no matter how rarely he got them, a blow job wasn't precisely kinky, let alone worth blushing so hard he looked like he might pop a blood vessel.

It wasn't until he was telling her how to do it, that it finally occurred to her what the kink was. He was _telling _her what to do. He wasn't asking, he was telling, and he was standing, all 6'1" and two hundred and ten pounds of him, towering over her, and she was on her knees, doing exactly what he was telling her to do, there entirely for his pleasure, and it had him so turned on he was leaking and trembling.

When he got off, he came so hard his knees buckled. And Abby swallowed. She always swallows, (She doesn't want a guy acting like she tastes nasty, so she's not about to do it to a guy.) but this time she made a little show of it, purring and milking him, letting him know she liked it.

After a few minutes, when he had calmed back down, he held her, and petted her hair, and told her how much he liked what she had done, how pleased he was by what she had done, and how he liked to do nice things for girls who made him happy, and then went down on her, and yeah, he wasn't great at it at that point, but he was enthusiastic, and attentive, and it was an awfully nice orgasm.

As they got ready for bed, she could see his embarrassment come back. So when they were both naked and sleepy in her coffin, she explained that it was okay for him to like to tell her what to do.

He looked really relieved, and like he didn't quite believe her. Because, like most guys who are into Domming but aren't assholes, he had a hard time getting over the deeply ingrained idea that nice guys don't do things like that. Nice guys ask. Nice guys _always _ask. Nice guys don't get off on telling a woman to do things, and they certainly don't have a little part inside that likes the idea of _making_ her do something, and a nice guy really doesn't get off on the idea of a woman on her knees, head bowed, worshiping his cock, there entirely for his pleasure. That's the kind of sex that's in porn, and nice guys know that that's icky and objectifying, and they're supposed to feel ashamed about getting off on it, because it's demeaning to women.

Nope, nice guys don't go for that, at all. They're in it for safe, mutual, sanitary, and above all respectful (i.e. female directed and initiated) sex.

She's always hated seeing guys who do like Domming feel so bad about it. But especially in Tim, who genuinely is sweet and gentle and cares, seeing him feel like there was something bad about wanting to be in control just made her mad.

And maybe she's not a nice girl, but she always got off on seeing the aggressive, dominant side of him. Always liked it, always responded to it with a faster pulse, hotter breath, hard nipples, wet panties, do-that-again, and-do-it-fast, sort of way.

After that case in the women's prison, after he inspected his car, made sure it was done exactly the way he had liked it, he headed to the lab, stood very close behind her, and quietly said, with a voice that let her know exactly what he wanted, a voice that sent shivers down her spine and felt like his teeth on the nape of her neck, "Have dinner with me."

She turned to face him, and the look he was giving her was hot enough to melt her panties. What she wanted to do was bow her head and say, "Yes. Yes to anything and everything you want to do tonight. Yes to your voice in my ears telling me what you want. Yes to my body for you to play with. Yes to any and every sort of sex you want. Yes to my legs around your hips, my nails down your back, and licking your cum off my lips. Yes."

But what she actually said was, "I'm sorry, I want to, but I can't." Because no matter how good that night would have been-and watching him check his car, hearing his voice, seeing that look, she knew he had learned some new tricks since the last time they had slept together, and that night would have been _amazing_-the morning would have been complicated and unhappy, and she couldn't take him looking at her, disappointed, wanting more than she could give.

He saw the look on her face, understood everything she meant by it, nodded, and left.

* * *

The second time they did it was less than two weeks after they started dating again.

He was a lot more confident and comfortable with it. No blush in sight as he tied her hands and told her to unzip him with her teeth. No waver in his voice as he talked her through blowing him. And when he untied her hands and told her exactly how he wanted her to play with herself so he could watch, his eyes stayed on hers, and he looked dead sexy doing it.

But there was still a tinge of nervousness.

Not about doing it, not about liking it, but there was that hint of fear of is-this-the-time-I'll-whip-something-out-she-won't -like.

Is this the time I'll go too far?

She thinks she had Maxine to thank for that fear. She knew they had been dating, getting along well, and Tim had been happy and hopeful, then suddenly they weren't. And while he had been willing to tell her about issues with other girlfriends, all he would say about Maxine was, "I never told anyone any of your secrets, and I'm not going to tell you hers."

So Abby left it alone. But she still hated to see that bit of uncertainty in his face, and swore to herself, that no matter what he came up with, she'd treat him with care and never make him feel bad about the things he liked. She might not be willing to go along with it, but she'd never embarrass him or belittle him for it.

And, eventually, as time passed and he came up with new games, and she was interested in all of them, that nervousness eased, and since he shared the Breena threesome fantasy with her, it's been gone.

* * *

A long time ago, she had been sitting at Kate's, they'd spent the weekend together, awash in a tidal wave of girliness, and just having a really good time.

And by the time the bottle of wine was almost done, Kate finally asked her about Tim.

Well, asked might have been the wrong word.

"I don't get it," Kate said as she put her wineglass on the coffee table. They were lounging on her sofa, finishing off a bottle of Riesling.

"What?"

"You and McGee."

"He's cute!" Abby's voice got a bit loud and emphatic as she said that.

"Sure, he's cute. He's a big, adorable Labrador puppy of epic geek cuteness, but don't you want…" Kate didn't look like she quite knew how to finish that, but finally came up with, "Don't you need someone who can challenge you? Who can stand up for himself?"

Abby looked at her curiously. "Are we still talking about McGee and me?"

"Yes."

"You sure? 'Cause that sounds a lot like you and Gibbs."

Kate rolled her eyes. "Gibbs and I is beyond dead on arrival."

"He likes you." Abby might not have been a trained investigator, but she wasn't blind either, she saw the way Gibbs looked at Kate when Kate wasn't paying attention. And she knew Kate had something of a crush on her boss.

"Not enough to get over his rules, and even if he was, I'm not crazy enough to date a man with three ex-wives. Let alone come onto my boss, who has a girlfriend. So, you and McGee, don't you want some sort of challenge, you know, a guy who won't just… do whatever you tell him to?"

Abby giggled. "Look, I like a guy who will do exactly what I tell him to, and you don't even want to know how good McGee is at that. And he'll stand up for himself, too. He was telling me exactly what to do last week and, yeah, he was nervous at first, because, well, when isn't he? But he got into it, and it was a blast."

Kate didn't look like she believed that, at all. "McGee?"

"Yeah."

Kate was really curious, the kind of curious she only got when enough alcohol was in her system to shut down her Catholic School Girl reserve. "Like what kind of telling you what to do?"

Abby sipped her wine, remembering, wicked little grin on her lips. "Like the kind where you say 'Yes, sir. Please, sir,' but don't salute."

Kate's eyebrows shot up so fast and so high they looked like they were trying to migrate into her hairline. "McGee? Tall guy, good with computers, works out of Norfolk?"

"Yeah, McGee." Abby smiled smugly at her.

"Really, McGee? The guy who blushes and stutters when you look him in the eye and ask him a question."

"You have no idea. That boy has a mouth on him like you wouldn't believe—"

"Yeah, I know, he's cute." Kate looked a little exasperated at Abby's crush.

Abby smirked at her. "Not what I meant by mouth, but seriously, he does have the cutest lips ever. The little pouty thing with the bottom one…" Kate just stared at her, obviously not seeing what Abby saw in Tim. "Anyway, once he gets comfortable that stutter-y, nervous exterior goes away and… just… McGee is a _whole _lot of fun and up for anything you can think of."

Kate had looked very pleased by that. "Huh… maybe there's some hope."

"Hope for what?"

"Hope that there's a guy who can drag your heart out of that lock box you've got it hidden in. Letting yourself love someone would be good for you, and if he can make you say 'Yes, sir,' maybe he's the guy to do it."

Two weeks later, after a night of really good sex, where Tim showed her that he was just as happy to get tied up as he was to do the tying, Abby realized that Kate was right, he could do it, so she broke up with him, terrified of what would happen if he did drag her heart out into the light.

* * *

Abby watched Tim continue to mess around with the things they had brought, picking up her clothing and putting it back as different ideas percolated through his head, and she wished Kate could have seen that she was right.


	119. The Art of the Tease

Tim stood in front of his luggage and debated. The kilt would provide significantly easier access. And while it was true that what they did in the shower means he's not going to get a hard on anytime soon, he's going to take her out and play with her all day, so at some point his dick will wake back up again, and the kilt is terrible for keeping that under wraps.

His jeans, on the other hand, keep everything fairly well concealed, but they're a pain in the ass (pain in the pubes, really. Getting a few of them snagged in the zipper'll kill a good blow job in a second.) to have sex in.

He decided to kick that down the road a bit, went to her luggage, and started sorting through. He noticed she hadn't brought any pants and approved of that whole-heartedly. Yes, he liked her in jeans, but he adored her in skirts or dresses, especially the short ones that come just to mid-thigh.

And from the looks of it, that was all she packed.

The little black dress with the cherries on it was in there, and so was the scoop neck t-shirt and the black skirt with the white stripes down it… _Choices… choices._

He went for the t-shirt and skirt, the collar looks better with them, and then began to sort through her undies. No panties, that was a given, but what about a bra?

The t's pretty thin and tight, so… _Ooh… black satin demi cups with the front closure._ He loved that one. It was really pretty, easy for him to get her out of, and provided some awfully nice shaping.

Bare legs or socks or stockings… He found his phone and checked the weather. Highs in the mid-seventies… too cool for bare legs. Too cool for stockings. White above the knee socks with little vertical black stripes it is. Plus, with the socks he could to see that little four inch strip of naked skin between the socks and her skirt, and even though he wasn't particularly into hentai, he really appreciated that look.

Boots or mary janes? Mary janes, he wanted to be able to see the curves of her legs.

He was lying the socks on the bed next to her when he noticed that she looked a little sad. That really wasn't the direction he was hoping this was going to go, and he couldn't think of anything in the last five minutes that would have set her off.

"Are you all right? We don't have to do this if—"

She turned to look up at him, sorrow still in her eyes. "Yeah, I'm all right. Yes, I want to keep doing this. I was just thinking."

"About?" he asked as he sat next to her.

"Kate thought maybe you were the guy who could drag my heart out of the lock box I had it hidden in."

He smiled at that.

"I wish she could have been at our wedding."

He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her shoulder. "I would have liked that, too."

Then Abby started to tear up and snuggle into his arms, quietly crying. Part of him was feeling pretty alarmed by that, and wanted to say something like, "Hey, none of that, sex and fun, remember?" But he figured that would probably be worse than useless, so he held onto her and stroked her back, hoping this passes quickly.

And it did. After a few minutes, she pulled back, wiped her eyes, and smiled at him.

"Sorry."

"You don't have to apologize about missing your best friend."

"Thanks. I really don't like this think-about-something-kind-of-sad-for-ten-seconds- and-burst-into-tears thing."

Tim nodded. "It's a little scary."

"Yeah." She wiped her eyes again, and looked at the clothing he'd put next to her. "That looks promising."

"Good. You ready to play?"

"Yeah." She smiled.

"Go wash off your face, then do your makeup, out here, no lipstick."

She nodded and went to the bathroom. Cool water splashed on her face helped with the puffy redness around her eyes. When she was looking normal again, she grabbed her cosmetics bag and headed back into the bedroom, then, standing in front of the mirror over the dresser got to work.

Tim watched her for a moment, wondering if she was really all right, but she seemed okay as she rubbed sunblock onto her face, neck, and shoulders. So he relaxed, focused on sex again, enjoying the sight of her fingers rubbing over her skin. Then he began to look through her cosmetics. He loved the way Abby looked with lipstick on. Her lips dark red just made his day.

Her lipstick on him, unless the part of him in question is his dick, was a different story. And he was pretty sure that her lipstick would be all over him by the end of today if she was wearing any.

But he also knew she had something on that was deep red and didn't smear all over the place for their wedding, and he was wondering if she brought it. Though why he thought he could just look through her cosmetics and figure out what that was he didn't know. So he put the bag down and asked, "Did you bring the red stuff you were wearing on your lips at our wedding?"

"Yes."

"Wear that, too."

She smiled, pulled out something that looked like every other red tube in the bag, and put it on the dresser while she darkened her eyebrows. He picked it up and made a mental note; it was called lipstain, and looked like a red magic marker.

As she did her face, he came to the conclusion that he had pushed back figuring out what he was going to wear as far as he could, so, time to get dressed.

Part of being a good Dom is balancing the tasks you set for your sub with the rewards you give her. The idea is to make your sub want to please you, make her crave the attention and petting she gets for good performance.

And the only way to do that is to actually get to know your sub well enough to know what she wants. (Part of the reason Tim and Abby found 50 Shades of Gray so funny was that apparently in addition to being a billionaire, hyper-competent executive, Christian Gray was also a mind reader, because that's the only way those two could have clicked so quickly.)

But by this point, Tim is a very good Dom, so he knows what Abby wants, knows what she likes, and knows just how to pet her.

Abby had already done a very good job of pleasing him today, and she preferred the kilt to jeans, so on the kilt went. And if everyone in Charleston ended up seeing he wanted to fuck his wife, oh well. If he didn't want other people to see, they could stay at the hotel.

He dressed quickly: kilt, t-shirt, and socks. Boots and jacket'll go on later. Then he headed back into the bathroom to grab his cuff and her collar.

She was smoothing the lipstain on as he came back out. He thought that was the last step of getting her makeup on, so he waited. And when she finished, he handed her his wrist cuff. "Put it on me."

She was holding it, reaching for his wrist, when he stopped her. "The lipstain, does it have to dry or get blotted or anything?"

"Yes. It takes a little while to set up, and before it does it can smear or leave lip prints."

He smiled. "Kiss my wrist."

She smiled back, and then left a perfect, red lip print on his wrist. Abby blew lightly on it. "Don't want it to smear."

"Thank you." He waited a moment, then ran his thumb over it, and it stayed put. He nodded, and she closed the cuff around his wrist. "Maybe I'll get that tattooed on."

She raised an eyebrow at him and looked very pleased at that idea.

"Maybe I'll put a few more on you, too." He lifted her now damp hair off her shoulders, and kissed just below and behind her ear. "My lips right here. And," he took her hand in his, lifting her right arm up and out, and kissed the crease of her elbow, "right there. Here." His lips settled on her mound, just above where her labia came together. "Definitely here." He kissed her one more time there, soft and wet. Then he pulled back, licked her, and said, "Maybe not there. Tattoo artist would have to see you there to do it. So…" He slid his lips down her leg, gently nibbling, and kissed the back of her left knee. "Right here. And one more…" he kissed the top of her foot, just above her toes. "You covered in my kisses, head to toe. I like that."

He stood back up and circled behind her, holding her collar in his right hand. With his left, he lightly scraped his fingernails down the back of her neck, along her spine to the small of her back. Then he followed that path with his lips and teeth, soft, wet kisses and sharp, light bites. She shivered as he did it, moaning softly.

"Feel good?"

"Yes."

He straightened up, reversing the line of kisses up her back, lingering on the nape of her neck, just below her hairline, enjoying the feel of her skin breaking out in goosebumps under his touch. He kept his lips just above her skin and whispered, "Bow your head," his breath caressing her wet flesh.

She did, and he fastened the collar around her throat.

"Turn and look at me." She did, standing before him, naked, face done, hair damp, and because it hasn't been brushed through, wavy, draping over her shoulder, covering her left breast. He feathered his fingers over her face, throat, and shoulders, down her arms to her hands, his eyes following the path of his hands, tracing further down her body, and back again to her face. "You are so beautiful."

He kissed her lips, soft and slow, his hand on the back of her head, fingers tangled in her hair, and she kissed back, lips warm and welcoming. He didn't pull back as he murmured against her lips, "And you'll be even more beautiful flushed head to toe, nipples hard, moaning my name as you ride my cock, coming so hard you see stars."

He stepped back and got the butterfly.

One thing a lot of guys don't know about vibrators is that if they keep running, eventually the person under them goes numb. In fact, they were originally designed for anesthetic purposes, but eventually a doctor figured out they were a lot faster at treating, "feminine hysteria," than the hands on method, and shortly thereafter no one used them for anesthetic purposes.

Tim can't remember what got Ducky on that tangent, but he does remember blushing pretty hard about it, while Tony slapped him on the shoulder and made a lame joke. Still that did turn out to be useful information, because it made him realize that women might not use vibrators the same way men would, so he did some research, and well, much to the delight of the three women he's done this with, he's awfully good with one.

So, as he was slipping the butterfly up Abby's legs, petting and kissing his way up, using his fingers and tongue to make sure he's got it set exactly right, he was not planning on just letting it run. That'd be counter-productive. (In fact, he had never gotten a girl off with a vibrator. If he's going to get a girl off, it's going to be his fingers, cock, or tongue doing it.)

The point of the butterfly is the anticipation of never knowing when then next little jolt comes. The idea is to keep Abby focused on sex, keep her arousal level high, remind her that today he's in charge of her body, in charge of her arousal. He's the one who gets to choose when she comes.

It's got five speeds, and he's never used any higher than three, which is, according to Abby, a nice, steady hum, the sort that feels good, but can't get her off.

Once he got it set, he said, "Lay down."

So she did, on the bed. "Legs wide."

And she did that, too. He started at her ankle, sucking, open-mouthed kisses, purposely wetting the skin, blowing on it gently to add to the sensation, all the way up her leg, listening to her purr as he did it. When he got to her pussy, he placed her foot on his shoulder, and began to lick, tongue flat and broad, over her lips, while he pulsed the vibrator on the lowest setting. No more than a few seconds of buzz at a time while she writhed against him.

He got his fingers into the game, slipping in and pressing up, pulsing along with the vibrator, feeling her body start to tense around him, starting the build toward orgasm, which stopped him. He pulled back and away, biting gently on the soft curve where her leg and buttock met.

"Let's get you dressed," he said, grinning at her, holding her gaze as he carefully licked his fingers clean.

Tim loves watching Abby dress, especially when she's feeling playful and makes a show of it. And today she was feeling playful, smoothing her socks gently up her leg, stroking her fingers over her skin as she did it, lifting her foot higher than necessary, 1950s pin up style, flashing him.

He sat in the chair in the corner, watching. His dick was still asleep, but he certainly appreciated the show. Her in thigh high socks, the butterfly, and collar, bending over to pick up her bra and slide that on was beyond beautiful. He spread his legs, hiked the kilt up and stroked himself, and no, he wasn't hard, and no, it wasn't going to make him hard, it had been less than twenty minutes since the last time he got off, but it still felt nice.

And he knew she liked to watch, liked knowing that he was just as affected by this as she was.

He got his pleasure at her across in his look, keeping his eyes hot and on her the whole time she was dressing.

When she finished, she came to stand in front of him. He stood up, and held her close, her forehead against his lips. He kissed her softly.

"I love you, Abby. You make me happier than I ever had any right to expect to be happy. You are my joy." He lowered his lips to hers for a long hot kiss, tongue stroking hers, his hands cupping her rear, pulling her close to him.

He didn't step back, though he did break the kiss to look at her and say, "And you are the sexiest woman alive. Let's go out and play."

* * *

In addition to being a good food city, and music city, and just an achingly beautiful place to be, (Seriously, how does the sky get so blue here? Tim's never seen blue like that.) Charleston is also a great art city. There are full streets filled with small galleries of all sorts.

And art galleries are a remarkably good choice of places to go when you're so turned on you can't see straight. No one really expects you to make conversation. The other patrons are looking at the art, not you, and there's often enough background noise that if something is making a slight buzzing sound, it's hard to hear.

For the most part Tim and Abby just wandered from gallery to gallery, looking at pretty things, lots of landscapes/cityscapes and occasionally he'd give her a quick buzz/kiss/say something insanely dirty to her.

Then they found the gallery with the nudes. And, no he hadn't planned it. Didn't know it was there. Hadn't seen it when he was wandering about looking for the way back to the hotel. But the opportunity presented by a wall covered with absolutely gorgeous black and white nudes, mostly women, was too good to pass up.

One was a shot of the curve of a woman's shoulder, back, and buttocks. And for the moment no one else seemed to be in the place, so as they looked, he traced his hand over the same curve on Abby, quickly slipping his hand under her skirt, grazing his fingernails over her butt and the top of her leg, and then shifting over two steps to stand directly behind her and kiss the curve where shoulder became neck.

He turned the vibrator on its lowest setting. "Have I told you that's one of my favorite views?" Granted, Tim had a new favorite view roughly every third day, but yesterday afternoon was inspiring this current one.

"No."

"When you're on your hands and knees, and I'm balls deep inside of you, your back arches," he lightly ran his hand along her spine, "and your head drops, and I can enjoy the perfect curve of your body. Your shoulders and spine flex a little as you rock back onto me. Your hips and the small of your back are just perfect for grabbing." His hands came to rest on her hips, and he pulled her to stand against him. "And your bottom's high," he added a little grind of his hips against her, and nudged her foot over a few inches with his own, "so I can see everything, see myself sink into you," he slid his hand up the inside of her thigh, "see your gorgeous pink pussy go tight around me as I slide in," he slipped a finger into her, "and cling to me when I slip out." And pulled it back out. He stroked her neck with that finger, and then licked the wetness off her throat. "Love that."

Abby's eyes slid shut, and she inhaled quickly. He rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped one arm around her waist, fingers quickly slipping under the waistband of her skirt, lightly stroking her tummy. "Open your eyes. Look at that one."

The next shot over was the curve of a woman's leg from hip to foot. She was laying down, knee bent, foot flat on the floor.

He kept his voice very low, partly because his mouth was less than an inch from her ear, partly because should someone come in, he doesn't want anyone to overhear this, mostly because he knew that voice made her quiver. "When we get back to the hotel, I'm going to put your leg just like that, and then kiss my way up it." He dropped his hand to her side, fingers coming to rest just below the edge of her skirt, then he lightly stroked just the tips of his fingers over her bare skin. "Lick every inch. Then I'll hook it over my shoulder, spread you wide, and eat you out. I'm going to feast on your pussy, licking every single bit of it, over and over, savoring your smell and taste. I'll nibble on the lips, just a little light scrape of tooth, just enough to pull a little bit, tug slightly. I'll suck on your clit until you're flushed, shaking, screaming my name, and begging to come." He turned the speed up a notch on the vibrator, seeing the flush creeping up her cheeks and down her throat. "Then I'll point my tongue and rub your clit in long, slow circles," his tongue flicked out and caressed her earlobe, "just sort of rolling over it, nice and slow and gentle, while my fingers slip in and out of you." He clicked the vibrator off, and she whimpered, inhaling long and shaky trying to keep control of herself. "Taking you down a bit, spinning you out, making sure you're good and ready to come before I get you off."

As he whispered that to her, his dick finally noticed something interesting was going on. Something really good, something it really wanted to get involved in. He rubbed against her again, letting her know that his body was back in the game as well. Abby grinned and rubbed back.

And though there were other shots, and he was sure he could come up with some good commentary to go with them, he was also not interested in talking both of them off in an art gallery. Time to ease back, and find something else to do.

As they were walking out, he noticed the pockets in the kilt weren't anchored. So, if he had something of a inconveniently conspicuous hard-on, and he wasn't feeling like wandering around with that visible to anyone who cared to look, he could just put his hand in his pocket, reach over a little, and hold it down.

And it just looked like he was walking with his hand in his pocket.

Added benefit to that, since his hand was already in his pocket, Abby never knew when he was going to turn the vibrator on.

It was about ten thirty at that point, so as they're walking out, he said to Abby, "I think it's time for a snack. Is there anything you'd like?"

He probably should have expected the answer. He did ask the question less than a minute after turning the vibrator off, and was holding down the hard-on he'd been rubbing against her. Still, it took him a bit by surprise when she said, "Cock."

A flush of hot pleasure coursed through him, and he may have squeezed himself a little harder, because, yeah, that sounded really good.

And there is a practical benefit to letting her do it. It is significantly easier to be a good Dom if you aren't so turned on you can't think. A huge part of the game is balancing your desires with your sub's desires, and, like with anything else, it's much easier to be aware of, and attentive to, the needs of someone else if your own needs have been met.

The goal, then, of a good game, is to get everyone's needs met. The sub by meeting her Dom's expectations, and the Dom by providing expectations the sub wants to meet.

In a really good game, it's a perfect circle of gaining pleasure by giving pleasure. And that's why, though the Dom runs the game, the sub sets the rules. Almost anyone can enjoy the Dom part of the game, but the pleasure through service aspect of the sub is harder, so she gets to set the rules, create the atmosphere most conducive to wanting to please, to getting off on the Dom's pleasure.

But for a good Dom, the pleasure comes from pushing the sub beyond what she thought she could endure, taking her farther and higher than she's ever been, providing a safe space to fully relax and fall apart, and then holding the sub as she comes back together again. The challenge is finding that line of just far enough without breaking the comfort that comes from being taken care of.

And for a good Dom, watching that/doing it is a massive turn on. But doing it takes control. Which can be hard to keep a hold of if you're too turned on.

So, Tim seriously thought about it. His desire was distracting to him, and he didn't want to miss a cue as to what is going on with her. But at the same time, his arousal was a big part of what was feeding Abby's desire. And he didn't want to cut into that.

Then the fact that they have really different subbing styles also occurred to him. When he subs, he'll do exactly what she tells him to, never pushing the bounds, because he gets off on the not being in control. She, on the other hand, likes to challenge him a little, see how he'll respond. She pushes him a little, so he'll push her a little. For her it's about testing the boundaries, seeing how far they really can go. In the end, both styles work, very well.

So, he smiled indulgently, and said, "It's mostly protein, won't keep your blood sugar up. But, if you're good, and eat nicely, then you might get a taste. And if you're very good, and eat beautifully, you'll get a mouthful. Now, what would you like for a snack?"

She smiled at him. "Vanilla soft serve ice cream."

"Very good choice."

* * *

He'd noticed one the first time he was wandering around, but it hadn't meant anything to him. Family rest room. He knew for a fact that the men's room had a line of stalls, and he had a suspicion that was what the ladies' room has, as well. But he'd never been in a family rest room before, sooo…

He opened the door and pulled Abby in quickly. _Nice._ He locked the door behind them.

It looked more like a powder room in a house than a public restroom. Granted the ones in homes tend not to have changing tables bolted to the wall, let alone toddler-sized potties to go with the adult one, but the lack of stalls lent it a more personal feel.

But more importantly it was private, had a door that locked, and looked clean enough for surgery.

"You did very well with your snack, Abby."

And she had. If that ice cream cone could have come, it would have, _hard_. And if it was possible to get Tim off by eating an ice cream cone in front of him, he would have come, _hard_.

"You definitely get your mouthful." He nodded at the ground, and she sank to her knees as he lifted the kilt.

Normally, she'd lick him first, but the whole mouthful thing instead of a taste meant she took him in hand, opened wide, and sucked him down in one fast move.

"Oh shit!" Tim gasped, jerking away from the searing, wet, cold of her mouth. It was like dipping his dick, his very hard, very hot, excruciatingly sensitive dick into a slightly melted snow drift.

She looked up at him, worried. Him jumping back and rubbing himself was not the response she was hoping for.

He saw the worry in her eyes, and was still holding his dick as he said, "It's okay. I didn't realize your mouth would be that cold. That was a hell of a shock."

He watched her bite her lip, smile tugging at the corners, and look down, shoulders shaking.

"You're laughing, aren't you?"

She looked back up, trying to keep it together and not doing a great job of it. "Yes."

"It's okay."

Abby giggled hysterically, snorting a little.

He started to laugh, too. "Well, that took care of my erection. Not the way I was hoping for." But being sucked into an ice cold mouth had indeed wilted him. He sighed and let the kilt drop. "You need to use the restroom?"

"Wouldn't mind."

"Okay." So he headed back out, and noticed a few people staring in his direction. Apparently, the 'Oh shit!' was fairly loud. He just smiled at them, tried to look harmless, and waited for her to get done.

* * *

There's a point where a body is going to get off. You back off, no more stimulation, to try and get away from the edge, and then start up again too soon, and no matter how light the touch, how whisper thin the stimulation is, your body decides it's had enough and boom, orgasm.

He's accidentally done that to himself a few times, and honestly, those aren't great orgasms. Not bad. No such thing as a bad orgasm. But still, if you accidentally trip into one, you end up with your body just sort of surrendering, limping over the line, twitching a few times, and giving up.

And with this much build up, the absolute last thing he wants is to screw this up by just going a little too far, just a little too soon.

The main downside of doing this out and about was that Tim has a much harder time figuring out how close to that line Abby is. If he was lying between her legs, tongue on her clit, fingers inside her, he'd have a really good handle on what's going on and could play her like Chopin with a nocturne.

But she was not naked. He was not that close to her. And he didn't want to accidentally push her over the edge. Which, judging from the way she's flushed and breathing, might be a real possibility.

So after ninety minutes of… Hell, he doesn't know. They walked around and had long-distance eye sex while he said more hot/sexy/dirty things to her, buzzing her now and again, hugging, petting, and kissing when appropriate. There were touristy things in the background; he didn't pay any attention to them. One nice stranger gave them a tube of sunblock and suggested they get inside because they both appeared to have gotten too much sun. (Good thing about doing this outside, sex flush is easily mistaken for sunburn.) And he certainly enjoyed the excuse to very carefully, very thoroughly apply more sunblock to Abby, and have her do the same to him.

But he'd gotten to the point where he knew if he didn't stop this soon, just holding onto his dick to keep it from poking out was going to get him off, and since he's not the one getting played with all that much, she has to be even closer to the edge than he is.

So he found the place that did the duck sandwiches, and they had lunch, and for an entire hour he said and did nothing even remotely sexy.

And yes, the first ten minutes or so involved a fairly decent amount of squirming from Abby, but she eventually got the idea that nothing was going to happen, so she relaxed as well, and her flush went down, and they had a nice lunch, oohing and ahhing over the meal.

* * *

After lunch he was feeling pretty well back in control again. Erection had wilted, he could focus on sex without feeling like he was on the edge of climaxing, and while it's true he didn't say or do anything sexy while they ate, it didn't mean he wasn't planning the next phase of the game.

Naptime.

He kept them to neutral topics as they headed back to the hotel: dinner options, the walled gardens, flowers, and houses around them. Pretty much a steady stream of white noise. The restaurant was only a mile away from the hotel, so that was a fairly comfortable twenty-minute walk.

Two more minutes got them to their room.

Once there, he said, "I want you to take off everything but the socks, bra, and collar. Shoes first, then shirt, then skirt, and finally the butterfly."

He turned the vibrator on as he said that, and sat in the chair to watch her undress.

She sat on the bed, knees drawn up to her chest, and unbuckled the first shoe, slipping it off her foot, following it with the other one.

It always amazed him how girls take off shirts. Abby did that thing where she crosses her arms, holds the bottom of the shirt, and slowly eases it over her torso, stroking her ring and pinky fingers over her tummy and breasts as she did it. He'd seen her do it hundreds of times, and he still couldn't figure out how it worked, he even tried it once and came to the conclusion he'd rip the shirt before he managed to get it off like that.

The skirt came next, and he moaned a little as she eased it over her hips. He upped the speed on the butterfly and she moaned as well, kicking the skirt aside.

He sat there, gently, slowly stroking himself as she began to loosen the straps on the butterfly, and gave himself a firm squeeze as she shimmied out of it. Almost naked, she stood in front of him, waiting for the next command.

He let his eye run over her body, taking in every inch, savoring the sight of her. He noticed the shine on both of her thighs from how wet she was.

"Look at how wet you are. That can't be comfortable. Come here." She did, standing in front of him. "Foot on the arm of the chair."

She did that as well, which put her pussy just inches in front of his mouth.

He rested his lips on her thigh, inhaling deeply. "You smell so good." He licked a long wide stripe from her thigh to her pussy, sucking one of her lips, squeezing himself, hard. "God, you taste even better!"

His hands came to rest on her ass, pulling her closer, as he made good on the promise he gave her in the art gallery.

When she was grinding against him, hands clenched painfully in his hair, almost sobbing his name along with a long steady stream of "Please, God, Tim, please, baby, please!" he pulled his tongue back, pried her hands out of his hair, and put her foot back on the floor.

He held her hips, and gently kissed her belly, stopping as much for his sake as for hers. He knows that he can get off from going down on a woman, granted he hasn't done it since grad school (and he was lying on his stomach when it happened) but he's turned on enough it's a possibility, and he'd prefer not to repeat that performance. After two minutes, when his cock stopped throbbing, he slipped his lips up to her breasts as he stood, unhooking her bra, easing it off, and took a moment to slowly kiss and suck each nipple.

Then he let go of her, said, "Back in a sec," headed to the bathroom, grabbed a washcloth and a towel. He wet the washcloth, making sure it was nicely warm.

A moment later, he stood in front of her. "Legs apart." He carefully wiped her pussy and thighs with the wet cloth, and then just as carefully blotted her dry.

"I bet that feels better, doesn't it?"

She growled at him, and he smiled.

"Nap time. I want you to undress me. Kilt's not very comfortable anymore." And honestly it wasn't. It wasn't constricting which was nice, but the head of his dick was so sensitive the cotton fabric felt like sandpaper.

He could see some challenge in her eyes as she awaited his next instruction. "Boots first." They're basic black leather work boots, and she did a competent and not particularly erotic job of taking them off. Of course, since he isn't Jimmy, he's not sure there was any way she could take them off that he'd find erotic. And peeling off his socks wasn't much of a show either.

"Shirt next." He thought that was when she got the idea that if she could get him so turned on he couldn't see straight that maybe he'd finally get her off, because he was fairly certain that having her breasts rubbed all over his chest/face wasn't really required for getting his shirt off. Which was not to say he didn't appreciate it.

Oh yes, soft warms breasts rubbed against any part of him is a treat, and the little moaning sounds she was making as she did it just ramped that up a few more notches.

The kilt is actually one long piece of fabric that wraps around and clips together. Getting out of it is awfully easy, just undo the two clasps at the waistband and it falls to the floor. If she could have undone those clasps with her teeth, she would have. But they just don't work that way, so she stood a half step in front of him, slipped her hand down the front of kilt, cupping protectively over his dick (Which he also appreciated, loudly and sincerely, and not just from a it felt fucking fabulous perspective, but as was previously noted, with as sensitive as he was right that second, having the kilt slide down his dick would actually hurt.) and used her thumbnail to pry open each clasp.

A second after that, Tim was naked save for his wrist cuff.

"Thank you." She stood there, smiling up at him, her hand starting to move a little. He grabbed her wrist. "Stop that. Nap time. Lay down, get comfy. We are going to get a rest. Then fucking, lots and lots of fucking." He pressed up against her, dick against her stomach, and had to bite his lip at how good that felt, and said, "And once you get your nap, I will fuck you until you come harder than you ever have before. I'll make you come so hard, you'll forget you've ever gotten off before."

Abby lay down on the bed with the enthusiasm of particularly recalcitrant two-year-old being sent off to naptime, but got into her normal sleeping position.

Tim lay down behind her, snuggling up carefully, making sure his dick was pressed up against the small of her back, because he knew that if it was between her buttocks he was going to lose his control and just start to thrust.

He wrapped his arm around her waist, kissed her shoulder, and said, "Go to sleep."

* * *

The plan was lay down, snuggle up, and well… not go to sleep. The plan was he'd lay there quietly for five or so minutes, and then make his move.

But she beat him to it.

He's laying snuggled up behind her, comfortable, very turned on, counting to three hundred, (he got to 109) when he noticed her rocking, gently, against the pillow between her legs.

She usually sleeps on her side with a pillow between her knees, and she sort of hugs it, too. Normal enough. But he could feel the way her hips were moving, and that wasn't normal.

She was rubbing off on the pillow.

"Abby, you're being a very bad girl. I said, go to sleep."

"Too turned on."

His eyes narrowed for a second. Either he's pushed her so far, kept her turned on for so long, she's forgotten her safeword, and has hit the point where she can't take it anymore. Or she's playing with him, seeing how committed to this he is.

She felt him pause, think, and looked over her shoulder, flashing him a quick smile. She was just messing with him.

"On your hands and knees."

She scrambled into position, grinning.

"And do you know what happens to bad girls?" Tim asked, kneeling behind her, pushing Abby onto her knees and elbows, ass high in the air, legs wide, tracing her labia with his dick.

"No." Her voice was quivering with anticipation.

"They." He pushed in just the barest hint of an inch, hissing at the hot and wet of her body, forcing himself to stay in control and edge in just enough for a tiny bit of stretch. "Don't." He slipped his dick over her clit (so hot, so slick, so smooth). "Get." It trailed over her pussy (more hot, slick, smooth, and God he wanted to plunge into her hard and fast and over and over and fuck until he came so hard he passes out). "Fucked." And then he stepped back.

"Tim!" Abby's voice was halfway between a whimper and a moan.

"Lie down, on your back." He found the ropes they brought and tied her hands to the headboard, loosely enough so that she could move them into any position that was comfortable, above her waist. But try as she might, she couldn't get them lower than her belly button. Then he tied each ankle to one of the bed posts, leaving her spread wide open, so she couldn't get off squeezing her legs together.

"Go to sleep. I'll be back in one hour."

* * *

Longest damn hour of his life.

The downside of being the Dom is that if your sub starts getting sassy, you need to make her behave, and while the thought has crossed Tim's mind that his tattoo-covered wife might not be adverse to getting spanked, first off he doesn't want to do it, (He's never hit a woman, and isn't about to start with Abby.) but even if he did, even if that was part of their usual play routine, he sure as hell wasn't going to do with her pregnant.

So he's got to get more creative on the make-your-sub-behave side of the spectrum because he won't just let fly with pain.

Well, physical pain. (Abby less than twenty feet away, wearing only thigh high socks and her collar, tied to the bed, while he's this turned on is god-awful mental pain.)

At least on her part. (Once again, on the physical pain side, he certainly hoped this was just as much mental torture for her as it is for him.)

He hoped. He'd never heard of anything along the lines of blue balls happening to women.

He was a whole different story. His dick and balls ached, and not in a I'm-so-turned-on-you're-driving-me-crazy-and-it'll be-all-sorts-of-worth-it-soon sort of way. (Though he kept remind himself that was true. And it will be. Oh God, it will be!) This was more the low, dull, got-kicked-in-the-balls-two-days-ago-and-they're-s till-sore sort of ache.

If he thought he could trust himself not to jerk off, he'd grab something cold out of the mini-bar and ice himself down. That had been amazingly effective before. But he was fairly sure that if he touched his dick with anything right now, he wouldn't stop. On top of that, he's so sensitive right now, if he were to get something cold onto his balls, he'd probably scream, and not in a good way.

So, he was sitting on the sofa, making himself watch something completely non-sexy on his kindle, not thinking about her tied spread eagle in the next room (too much) because if he goes in there on a hair trigger, and let his own pleasure overtake hers, this won't be worth the build-up.

* * *

59:59 he opened the door. And, while he was absolutely certain she did not, in fact, nap, her eyes were closed as he headed in.

She opened her eyes slowly, and he smiled at her.

"Good rest?"

"No. Frustrating."

He tilted his head and shot her a _serves you right_ look. "Behave and we won't have to do this again. I was only going to make you wait five minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"Ohhh… I like that." He circled around the bed, looking at her. "I'll have to admit I do like this, too. You spread out and tied up like this is so beautiful." He scraped the sole of her foot with his index finger, "So many possibilities…" and then stepped back to the dresser, picking up his phone.

"Got to get some pictures of this." And he did, muttering to himself about composition and lighting as he snapped shots of her full body, and his favorite bits. He took one extremely graphic close up of her pussy, and then put the phone back down. "Want to be able to see you like this, whenever I like."

Tim sat on the bed next to her, gently hovering his fingers over her belly, and kept them just a hair's breadth over her skin, ghosting down between her legs to touch the sheet under her. "You've left a little puddle on the sheet." Then he spread her juices over the crest of her hip, and slowly sucked it off.

Her body jerked as his lips came in contact with her skin.

"Have you been thinking about this? Getting yourself hot and wet while I was in the other room?" he asked while licking over her belly.

"Yes."

"And what were you thinking?" he gazed into her eyes while he asked.

"'Bad.' And you slammed into me, dick hot and hard, spreading me wide. 'Girls.' Pulling back out, slipping it along my lips. 'Get.' Adding more lube. 'Fucked.' Slowly sliding it into my ass, all the way, while you finger my pussy and clit. My hands tied, above my head, kneeling, you riding my ass, hard and fast, while the butterfly buzzes my clit on high."

He bit his lip, inhaled so sharply he whistled, and felt a drop of pre cum ooze out of his dick as she said that.

"Next time. Don't have the control for that today." His hand caressed over her pussy, making sure he got his fingers very slick, and then he gently stroked around her anus, working just the tip of his finger in, feeling another drop of pre cum ooze out of him at the feel of her around his finger. "I'd lose it long before I got all the way in that beautifully tight ass of yours." He pulled away and kissed from her hip, over her ribs, skirting around her breasts, up her chest, over her collar bone, slipping his lips over her throat to lick along her jaw, and then settled in next to her for a long, wet kiss, his lips on hers, tongues dancing.

It was good, really good, her body soft against his, her lips slick and wet, sliding over his, but the position was a little off, her arm was in the way, and he either has to keep himself up off it, or lay on it, and that can't be comfortable to her. So he broke the kiss and shifted so his knees were between her legs, his body propped on his elbows, keeping himself up high enough so that only his lips and chest hairs were touching her.

He wasn't sure who the sensation is more intense for, him, the slight movement of the hair sending soft, sharp whispers of pleasure through him, or her, arcing up, trying to get more friction on her nipples, as those silk fine hairs brushed against her breasts.

Either way, they were both moaning, loud.

If he was a little less turned on, his dick would be rubbing against her stomach, but the more turned on he gets the higher it rises, and right now it's bumping against his own stomach, gravity be damned. Which was probably a good thing, because he wasn't sure if he could take it rubbing against her.

"If I untie you, will you behave?"

Her eyes were glazed, face flushed, and voice needy as she said, "God, yes, please, anything you say, I will do."

"Good." He settled back on his knees and then scooted back a little, tracing his fingers down her chest, down her belly, across her mound, and down her slit, caressing each lip, pulling them wide. "Don't come." He bent his head and flicked his tongue over her clit, fast, focused, firm strokes because he wants her almost out of her mind by the time he lets her up.

She's writhing on the bed, hands clenched in the ropes, toes curled, legs quivering, body tight, but not getting off.

"Very good. Very, very good." He sat back up and untied her legs. Then he crawled up, straddling her chest, and leaned over to get her wrist. He untied the right and felt her breath on his dick.

"Suck my dick while I untie your left hand."

She did, and he closed his eyes, head dropping back. "Fuck." It was so good, hot and wet and tight. Her mouth wrapped just around the tip of him, tongue lapping at the pre cum, sucking another drop out of him. He fumbled with the rope, fighting with it, before it occurred to him that he couldn't get the damn thing untied unless he opened his eyes and looked at it.

A few seconds after that he had her untied, and as soon as the rope fell away she let go.

"Excellent," he managed to choke out.

He sat back against the headboard. "I want you to straddle my hips, facing away from me." She did, starting to sink onto his dick. He took her hips in his hands. "Stay up, you get to sink down when I tell you." He let go of her hip and began circling her clit with his left hand, small, firm, focused, and fast circles. The kind that had her throwing her head back, moaning, past the ability to make anything that sounded like a word. With his right hand he stroked his dick over her whole pussy, arching up just a little every few seconds to add some stretch but mostly just providing a hot slick slide to go with small focused circles.

He doesn't think he's ever seen her this turned on before, even her back is flushed. Of course, he's never drug it out this far before either.

When her whole body was shaking, her thighs and shoulders tight, the sex flush down to the small of her back, he wrapped his right hand in her hair, tugged lightly, and said, "Down!"

The fingers on her clit sped over her as her fire hot skin slipped over his. "FUCK!" he shouted at the feel of her on him, so hot, so wet, so tight, and so fucking amazing it took every last functional brain cell he had working to choke out, "You can come, baby."

And she did, whole body convulsing on him, as she screamed his name.

* * *

If one could win an Olympic Gold Medal in not getting off, Tim would have had it, by a wide, wide margin. She almost got him off. Her body, wet and hot and shaking on his as she screamed and moaned for what seemed like forever had him so turned on he felt like he was going to explode. Literally. Like each and every single cell of his body was on the edge of the most epic climax ever.

And the only reason he can think of that might have kept him from tumbling over with her is that maybe, like subspace, there's Domspace. Maybe there's a mindset that gets you through whatever situation you put yourself in, so you can be the Dom you promised to be.

And he promised to get her off twice, and maybe a third time.

So somehow he rode it out, didn't clutch her tight and come with her. Somehow, he was still hard, still holding it together when she stopped twitching and collapsed, utterly boneless against him.

He doesn't know if she actually passed out. But her eyes were closed, she wasn't moving beyond ragged breathing and gentle orgasmic aftershocks, and her body was dead weight on his.

So he shifted them around a bit, got them spooned on their sides, and held her close, one arm under her neck, his lips on her shoulder, her body still wrapped around him, and he waited, very gently stroking her nipple.

Eventually her breathing slowed, and her heart rate with it. Eventually she laced her fingers with his.

"Mmmmm…" Her eyes didn't open, but she did smile a little.

"Good?"

"Fuck baby, if good was a grain of sand, that was the Sahara Dessert."

That made him grin. He kissed her shoulder, touched her nipple a little more intensely.

"Mmmmm." She shifted and stretched a little, rolling her hips. "Feels like you aren't done."

"Not nearly. That was round one. Still got two and three."

She lifted his hand to her lips, sucking lightly on his index finger. "Timothy, I can take two, don't think I can handle three."

He kissed her shoulder and throat, understanding the use of her safeword, and how this was a hard boundary, not just part of the game. "Got ya. Once more, soft and gentle, just light, little touches to finish us both off."

"Sounds really good."

He shifted her leg over his hip, and twisted his pelvis a little, slipping his leg over hers, to get a deeper angle than they can usually do spooning. He thrust, reveling in the friction, the smooth, tight, silky slide of her body on his. "Fuck baby you feel so good." He thrust again. "So good." Another thrust. "Been waiting all day to feel you like this, all tight on hot on me."

They were on their sides, her body curled into his, rocking gently, and by that time only two things were going through his mind, the desire to feel her get off, and the overwhelming urge to follow her over the edge.

When her body tightened and rippled, he let himself go, let the razor-sharp pleasure crest through him, sear into every nerve, drop the color out of his vision, then steal his sight, leaving him shaking and gasping, drowning in ecstatic joy.

* * *

Then they got their real nap. Neither of them even shifted until well past dinner time, when Tim moved just enough to roll over and order room service. Twenty minutes later he somehow mustered enough energy to throw a towel around his hips and answer the door.

They finished the night curled together in bed, Tim hand feeding Abby breakfast in bed for dinner.


	120. Mine!

They were getting dressed the next morning, their last day in Charleston, when Abby asked, "Were you serious about getting my lip print tattooed onto your wrist?"

Tim pulled up his jeans and buttoned them. "I wasn't really thinking about it, just sort of going with the moment. But I could be." He's not feeling a burning need for another tattoo, but he doesn't mind the idea either.

"I really liked that idea. My lips on you, your lips on me."

He thought about it some more, smiling at the idea of his lips on her. But as he thinks, he notices there's something of a snag for hers on him.

See, there's this thing in the NCIS dress code, namely you aren't allowed to have visible tattoos. Sure, Abby has them, like with the rest of the dress code, Abby got a personal exemption from the rules from Jenny for the length of her employment. But he's not Abby, and at least while it healed up, he wouldn't be able to wear his wrist cuff.

And, well, the wrist cuff is him already pushing the edge of the dress code. He's seen Vance look at it a few times. Since it's not usually visible/looks like a watch if you aren't paying attention, he's never said anything, but it's not office casual approved, and Tim wouldn't be shocked if Vance didn't mention it to Gibbs, and Gibbs didn't give him the 'leave it alone' look.

"If we wait to get home, I can't do it. Can't be walking around work with a lip print visible on my wrist for a week. Down here works, but we don't know anyone down here." Of course the other thing about tattoos is that you generally don't want to just wander into a studio you don't know and let them have at it.

Abby squeaked with excitement, grabbing her phone. Less than a minute later she put it down. "I put the word out, should have a list of good places in Charleston and Savanah in less than an hour. Let's get some pictures." She was rummaging through her cosmetics bag, and came out with two tubes.

"You want mine in red, right?"

He nodded, recognizing the tube of blow-job red lipstick. "Does that stuff have a real name?"

"Yeah. Dragon by Chanel."

"Okay." He unsnapped the wrist cuff as she slicked the crimson lipstick over her lips.

Once it was on exactly the way she liked, she bounced over to him. Her fingers found the waistband of his jeans and popped the button. "Sure you want it on your wrist?" she asked with a wicked smile.

For a second, he just cringed at the idea of what getting a tattoo there would feel like, but finally he pulled it together enough to say, "Depends, do you ever want to have sex again?"

"Yes."

He held out his wrist and smiled dryly. "Then aim for my wrist, and if there's any lipstick left on you after that, you can blot it on my dick."

"Actually…" She unzipped him and slipped him out of his pants, then gave him a quick, light kiss, just around the tip of his dick. Abby stood back up, and pressed her lips into his wrist. "You get a better print with a little less lipstick on." She looked critically at his wrist. "Very nice. Don't go anywhere."

"I'm standing here with my dick out, where am I going to go?"

"Nowhere. The detail's really nice, so I don't want you accidentally smearing it."

Two seconds later she had her phone again and was snapping shots of his wrist. "Perfect. Let me get a few high def shots, too. If we can find anyone even remotely good at this, he won't have a problem making a good likeness. Now you." She put the phone on the dresser behind him, and conjured another tube of lipstick from somewhere.

"What's that?"

"Black lipstick." He's glaring at it a little, realizing what he just walked into. _Years._ She's been trying to get him into lipstick for years now. "After all, can't get your lip print without something to, you know, print it with. If you want, we can find a pink that matches your lips, but you'd have to try a bunch of them on to find the exact right color."

"You'll get another tattoo to finally see me in lipstick?"

She turned her hands palm up and tilted her head a bit, looking innocent. "You're the one who came up with the idea in the first place. This is just the logical consequence of that idea."

"Uh huh… Black. Not pink." He's already been to Sephora twice, hunting for eyeliner that didn't irritate his eyes, which he thinks she had way too much fun with, no need to go back for lipstick.

"Just think of how much fun you'll have getting it back off again."

He nodded, that was true, leaving lip prints he could see all over her didn't bother him at all.

"Fine. No pictures of me wearing it."

"What is it with you and lipstick? You'll wear eyeliner and mascara."

"I just don't like it on me. Makes me feel like Tim Curry in the Rocky Horror Picture Show."

"Oh my God, you'd look so—"

"No!" He pointed at her, looking stern. "Do not even think about finishing that sentence."

She pouted at him and then grinned, enjoying teasing him, but not wanting to push too far. "You'll be the one using the camera when we get the shots of your lip prints."

"Good."

He held out his hand for the lipstick. She just looked at it, very amused by the idea of him putting it on himself, then glanced up at to his eyes and shook her head. "Tim. I love you, and I know you're great at a whole lot of things, but, not this. Any kind of dark lipstick requires a steady hand and a clue as to what you're doing. Sit down, I've got this."

He tucked himself back into his pants and sat on the edge of the bed. Then she straddled his legs. "Just hold your lips the way you usually do." He did and she got to work. "Open your mouth." He wanted to say something along the lines of this seemed to be a whole lot more complicated than it should be, but that's one of the few things he really can't do right now. Then she got a little brush and did something else, that really tickled, and he was having a hard time keeping still. But finally she pronounced him done.

Abby held out her index and middle finger. "Blot, just like I did on you."

He looked at her, rose one eyebrow, and said, "You're enjoying this way too much."

She grinned, kissed his shoulder, leaving another red lip print, and said, "You like me in lipstick, why shouldn't I like the same thing?"

He didn't have a good comeback for that, so he made a show of opening his mouth, sucking her fingers gently into it, flicking his tongue over the tips of them while he lightly pressed his lips around them. Then he let go, pulled back, and asked, "All done?"

"Yeah. I think so."

He didn't look at himself in the mirror as he picked up her phone. Tim's not really interested in seeing what he looks like in black lipstick. He's fairly sure he doesn't actually look like Tim Curry in drag, but that's still the image he can't shake when he thinks about him in lipstick.

"I kissed you all over yesterday. Where do you want this?"

"Just below and behind my ear. I want other people to see it, know they're yours."

He felt a flush of pleasure at those words. "You know exactly what to say to me."

She smiled at him, and he stepped to stand behind her.

When he kissed her yesterday, he'd done the side of her throat with the spider web, but he's thinking the fact that it's a lip print probably won't be immediately recognizable from any real distance away, and a black blob right over the spider web might end up looking more like something the spider caught, wrapped up, and killed than a lip print.

So he turned her to the other side, gently lifted her hair out of the way, and carefully laid a kiss just below and behind her ear. The sight of it, his lips, in black, on her neck just got to him. He was actually pretty surprised by how hard that made him.

"Hold your hair out of the way."

She did, and he got several shots of his lip print on her neck, each one making him feel more turned on.

"It's insane how much I like that," he said to her as he put the camera down. "You'd think the engagement ring, wedding ring, tattoo, my last name now yours, and pregnant with my kid would be enough, but, nope, my lips on you just hits that MINE! button all over again."

"Anywhere else you want to see your lips?"

"God, yes!" And she was right, he had a blast getting the lipstick off, laying black kisses all over her body. (To the point where it's likely he could be pretty easily convinced to wear it again. In fact, it's possible he might reach for the lipstick on his own, because this is a lot more fun than hickies.) And he certainly didn't mind her red ones on his. (Though Abby kept them pretty concentrated in one area.)

And the shower after, washing them all away, was a whole lot of fun, too.

By the time that was done, Abby's assorted Facebook friends had provided several suggestions for places in Charleston and Savanah to get a tattoo. Along with an introduction to a friend of a friend who got rave reviews among her buddies.

Five o'clock that evening, Abby and Tim were picking out the exact right shade of red, and shortly thereafter he was once again remembering that getting a tattoo hurts like a son of a bitch.

But an hour after that, looking at his new skin art, watching the artist start to ink Abby, feeling an insane rush of love and belonging and MINE, he was more than sure that the pain was well worth it.


	121. Flexible

They got to Savannah three days later than they had intended to, fortunately, Abby had made her plans for day four.

"So what are these mystery plans you've got for us tomorrow?" Tim asked as they walked into their hotel room.

"Spa day."

His eyebrows furrow, and he just looked at her. For a moment he tried to think of something to say, but no words were forming.

"You look really perplexed by that."

He took a breath and nodded. The image of green goo on his face and cucumber slices over his eyes won't go away, and he found it really unnerving.

"Why?"

His mouth opened, but words still didn't come out. So she waited patiently for whatever weirdness was happening in his head to pass, and finally he said, "Abby, you've known me twelve years now, at any point during any of those years have I ever done anything to indicate I'd like a spa day?"

"You mean, besides the Femme Glow?"

He rolled his eyes.

"Tim, touch your toes."

"Huh?"

"Put a few of your fingers on one of your toes. Like this." And she bent from the waist, legs straight, and placed both of her palms on the floor. Three inch platform boots made that feat even more impressive.

He flashed her his _this is stupid but I'll humor you _look, and was able to touch the middle of his calf.

Once he was standing up again, she pressed in close, her pelvis to his, hands on his hips, and looked into his eyes. "You have the tightest hips, low back, glutes, quads, and hamstrings of anyone I've ever met. Tomorrow night, I'm going to tie you down, spin you out longer than I ever have before, and make you come so hard you pass out, but tomorrow morning, in preparation for that, you're getting a good, long professional massage to loosen you up, then some hot tub time. I want you all soft and bendy before I get my hands on you. See, my dick's plastic and straps on, so you having the tightest ass on the east coast doesn't do anything for me, and is probably part of why you end up so sore after. Plus, from everything I've read, the looser you start, the more intense the contractions are when they hit. So tomorrow morning, you, me, spa day."

He was smiling at that, because if there are two things Tim really likes, sex and massages are definitely on that list, and hot tubs are fairly high up, too. Then the smile faded as a thought related to sex and massages hit him.

"So, wait, someone else will be rubbing my ass?"

"Yes, that's the point of this."

He looked really disturbed. And why he's looking disturbed slowly dawned on her.

"Have you ever had a massage by someone other than me before?"

And that sort of got to why he's looking like that. Yeah, he has had massages by other people, okay, women, (Cracking Tony's back is the closest he's come to a massage from or for a guy.) before, but he can count the number of massages he's had that didn't lead to sex on one hand, which is a big part of the problem.

She was still staring at him so he said, "Sure. Maxine, Amanda, Helen, Joan…"

"Someone you weren't dating?"

"Ziva, Kate."

Abby stepped back for a moment, looking really shocked. "Kate gave you a massage? She didn't tell me about that."

For a second there, he's not sure if her expression is based on Kate poaching on her monopoly on him, or for him poaching on her monopoly on Kate, or if it's just that neither of them ever mentioned it, but he's fairly sure that a good chunk of it is that she's thinking of something significantly more intimate than what actually happened.

"It wasn't much of anything. On one of my first cases, I was holding her up so she could get some pictures, but it was a tight space, and I had to keep my right foot in a weird position to do it, and that gave me a charley horse. And the perp kept moving, so I kept holding her so she could get the shot, and by the time she did, it hurt so bad I was crying and so cramped up I couldn't get it stretched out myself, so she helped."

"Oh."

"Yeah. At first she was making fun of it and me, Probie-ing the snot out of me, really, but once she saw how cramped up it was, my foot was curled up like a fist, and realized I kept holding her up with that bad of a cramp, she apologized and helped me work it out. That was the first time she ever looked at me like I wasn't a complete idiot. First time anyone on Gibbs' team made me feel like I might make it as a field agent."

"She didn't think you were an idiot, just… green and young. Really young."

He shrugs. He was young, twenty-four when that happened. "Anyway, yes, I've had massages by people other than you, other than girlfriends, but never by a stranger, and never… well… there."

"And the idea makes you feel uncomfortable?"

"Yeah. The person doing this, the masseuse-"

"Massage therapist is usually the preferred term these days."

"Okay, the massage therapist, guy or girl?"

"Woman, two of them, it's a four handed massage. I figured you'd be uncomfortable with a guy."

"Yeah, that's true. But… well, okay, I know how I react when you rub my ass, thighs, and back, or for that matter when any other woman's done that and…" He was blushing a little.

She smiled at him. "You just said Ziva's given you a massage."

"Twice. And I laid on my stomach the whole time, and no one can make me admit that anything other than me falling asleep happened while she worked the kinks out of my back after two horrendously long cases."

Abby laughed, and then her smile went from amused to kind. "Remember when I got my rolfing certification?"

"Yeah."

"Day one, lesson two: working on guys. A: They will get a hard-on; it happens to all of them. B: It just means the limbic system is working. C: Ignore it. Day one, lesson three: effective draping technique. We spent a good two hours learning how to use the sheets so that you don't end up feeling like the support for a pup tent.

"Most of the other people in that class were professional body workers, and I'll admit, I thought lesson two was kind of funny, but the people I talked to said that it's standard for any bodywork. You can't do good work if the guy on the table is embarrassed, cause he'll tense up and fight what you're trying to do. And if he's the kind of client who understands what services are on offer, he's not looking for a happy ending, so he's likely to be embarrassed about getting hard, because it's not supposed to be sexy, but his dick just hasn't gotten that message. So a good therapist will get your body soft and loose and happy, and keep you covered so you don't feel exposed, and ignore it so you don't get embarrassed. We're going to the highest rated spa in Georgia tomorrow, and the people who work there are very good at what they do."

"Okay."

"Plus, it's a couples massage, so I'll be about two feet away the whole time."

That stopped him again. "I'm going to lay there, two feet away from you, with two women rubbing me all over, while two more women rub you all over?"

"Yes."

"Are you trying to kill me?"

"Well, just a little," she grinned, liking that double entendre and finished, "but much later that night. The plan for this part was to just get you relaxed enough so you can really bend. Look, when you've got my leg over your shoulder and do that little up thrust thing with your back and knees, you can hit my g-spot really well, and I know the anatomy isn't exactly the same, but it's pretty close, so that sort of move should work really well on you, but the one thing I know I can't do is get your leg over my shoulder the same way you do mine because you aren't flexible enough for it. So, nice long massage, melt that tension away, get your quads and glutes and hip rotators all nice and soft, and then completely mind-blowing sex."

He was looking pretty unsure of himself, but willing to go along on this, after all, he was all in favor of mind-blowing sex. "It's really not an issue?"

"Really not. Happens to every guy."

He sighed.

* * *

Tim had to admit, this was awfully nice.

It was a four hand massage, and there had been some sort of mention of hot stones and something called Lomilomi, but for right now, he was mostly aware of the fact that he was lying down on a really comfortable table while one therapist worked on his head and another rubbed his feet, and yeah that was a little tickly at first, but after the second time his foot jerked out of her hand, she shifted her technique, and well, if he was a cat, he'd be purring, loudly.

He wasn't even aware of the fact that it was possible to have tense feet. But apparently his were. Shelly, the one working on his feet, kept asking him questions along the lines of "Does this hurt?" and suggesting that maybe some yoga or meditation would be a good plan.

Beth, the therapist working on his head, was rubbing small, firm circles into his scalp, and that felt excellent. Unlike his feet, he knew his head could get tense. Like his feet, he didn't realize how much stress he'd been holding there until his body started to let some of it go.

"Wedding a little more stressful than you thought?" Beth asked him. Abby had been chatting with all four of the ladies, telling them about the wedding and move. And he hadn't thought it was particularly stressful, hours of sitting in front of that piece of paper willing himself to come up with vows aside, but yeah, he's tense.

"Apparently." And from there he just sort of drifted, letting them work him over, enjoying the way it felt, whatever they were rubbing him with smelled excellent, and the music was pretty nice, too. And yeah, his dick did take note of what was going on, and it certainly approved of this and was a bit disappointed when they stayed away from it. But the sheets they had on him did seem nicely snug so there was no tenting, and he kept his eyes closed, so if they were looking or giggling, he didn't notice.

At one point one of the ladies, (he doesn't remember which) started talking about doing some stretching, so he went with it. It burned a little at first, but he was pretty amazed at how bendy they got him. Apparently if you stretch once, then ease off, press into the position the therapist is holding your leg, and then let her stretch you again, you get a lot of range of motion pretty quick.

And eventually they had him flip over, and began to work on the back of him, and yeah, not all of it was particularly comfortable, and frankly some of it hurt, (Some of it really hurt. Shelly did something to his left shoulder and for what felt like a whole minute he could feel pain all through his shoulder, down his arm, into his jaw, and through his chest, then whatever the hell she was pressing on sort of twitched and rippled, and suddenly that dull pain he'd had in his shoulder for, oh, fourteen years at that point, vanished. She did something like that to his neck, and the low headache he thought was just how his body worked went away, too. This is also where it occurred to Tim that while he's in much better shape than at any other time in his life, that he's probably not yet in _good_ shape.) but by the time they were done he's feeling like a cooked noodle, and he's fairly sure he could touch his toes. (Okay, his ankles, they're massage therapists, not miracle workers.) By then he was coming to the conclusion that this whole professional massage thing would be worth doing again.

* * *

It's true that he didn't pay all that much attention to the bed in their room when they first got there, but the whole tie you down make you come so hard you black out thing certainly aimed his attention in that direction, get relaxed enough to really bend heightened it, and Abby standing in front of him, scarlet corset, hair long and loose, black and scarlet masquerade mask, black silk opera gloves, holding four black silk ropes, and he's suddenly very aware of the possibilities the four post bed this hotel offered.

The one snag was that, of course, his left wrist can't get tied. He's still at least a good month away from being able to do that. And for that matter, you aren't supposed to do anything particularly stressful with any part of you that just got a new tattoo, so his challenge for the night, besides relax, submit, and get fucked, is to keep his left hand on the bedpost.

And yeah, he didn't know he could get his leg _there_, let alone what could happen to him if Abby tied his leg _there_ but _holy fuck! _that angle was way more than worth it. If that little knee bend, thrust, up angle thing with her leg over his shoulder feels even half as good to Abby when he does it to her as it does to him when she does it, he was a fucking genius for figuring it out!

The whole muscle-contractions-are-more-intense-when-you-star t-out-relaxed thing, that was totally true. He hadn't been anticipating that he'd be able to feel them through his whole body. He'd heard of full body orgasms, and thought he'd had them, because he assumed they referred to the tingles (Which is awfully nice, and he really likes). What he didn't realize was he could come so hard his ears would twitch.

But they did, and so did everything else.

That was the last thing he remembered clearly. Sharp pleasure through his whole body, feeling like he'd never, ever been that tense or that primed to go off, and then everything pulling just a fraction tighter and releasing all at once.

Abby wasn't kidding about the 'make you pass out' part of that. When he was aware again he was so blissed out on endorphins and oxytocin that the entire world seemed to be shimmering in glowing shades of perfect.

He grinned, big, probably stupid smile on his face, at Abby and said, "This is what people are chasing when they get high." He kissed her long and soft. "You're the best drug ever, and I am so addicted to you."

"If you say I'm your heroin, I'll have to slap you."

"Don't tempt me, I'm goofy enough right now, I just might." Then he giggled a little. "You know, I am pretty pale."

"But you don't sparkle."

"I feel awfully sparkly right now."

That made her laugh.

* * *

The next morning, when he noticed that yes, he's a little sore, but he's only a little sore, he asked Abby about maybe doing some yoga with her, because she does it most mornings, and while it's true that he appreciates watching her do that, he's never joined in.

And yeah, he's clumsy, and it's a _lot_ harder than he thought it would be, but the view is nice, and everyone has said that some sort of exercise beyond occasionally running down suspects/away from dogs would be good for him.

Plus, this whole flexible thing seems like it might have unexpected side benefits that are worth cultivating, and he's rapidly developing some suspicions as to why Jimmy spends an hour every other day at the gym doing some sort of yoga thing.

Though he's fairly sure this isn't something he'll ever be comfortable enough with to do in public.


	122. Charleston or Savannah

When they told the Palmers about their honeymoon plans, Breena smiled at Jimmy and said, "Charleston or Savannah?"

Tim looked at her, eyebrows scrunched together. "Both, that's part of the point of this."

Jimmy shook his head, and Breena said, "There are two kinds of people in this world, Charleston people and Savannah people. I was wondering which sort he thinks you two are."

"Not sure. Probably Savannah, it's more gothic, but Charleston's got the whole pirate vibe thing going…"

Now, Tim knows the answer. Savannah. He's a Savannah person. Yes he likes Charleston, but Savannah just hits him right.

It might be because Charleston is a port city, a very tropical looking port city, and Tim's not especially tied to the water. (Though Savannah, like home, is a river city, so maybe the water thing isn't it.)

Could be good memories left over from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and while he wasn't getting into Savannah enough to tell if it really is Gone With The Wind on mescalin, he does enjoy the feel of the place.

Something about the massive oaks draped in Spanish moss. In Charleston the beauty is architectural, or fleeting glimpses of green oases hidden behind masonry walls and wrought iron fences. Here it's ancient and green and all over the place.

High buildings, cobblestone roads right next to the river, and tiny cafes with seating practically on the street appeal to him too. The four days they spent there were much too short, and getting back definitely went on the to-do list.

* * *

Richmond, which rounded out their honeymoon, felt a whole lot more like home than Charleston or Savannah. Part of it is that November in Richmond, is, like November in DC, just about winter. Their coats came back out for the last three days of their honeymoon.

Actually, it felt a lot more like Annapolis than DC.

Which means it clicked with Tim in a way that felt like home. He's got pretty good memories of Annapolis.

The fact that they stayed in the Fan, a neighborhood of Victorian town houses peopled with college students and ultra-wealthy history buffs intensified the college vibe.

Granted, like with Charleston and Savannah, they saw more of the inside of their hotel room than anything of the city.

But that's the point of honeymoon, right?


	123. Back To Work

"You're back!" Ziva seemed pretty happy to see him as Tim strolled into the bullpen.

"I am back."

Ziva hopped up out of her seat and wrapped Tim in a long and enthusiastic hug.

"I'm happy to see you, too, Ziva." He's flashing Tony the _what the hell is going on _look, while patting her back.

Ziva pulled back looking him deeply in the eyes. "Do not ever leave again!"

"Uh…"

"She was on phone records, financials, and emails, the whole time you were gone," Tony added, sounding amused.

"How do you do it? It's so boring."

Tim rolled his eyes. "You were looking through by hand weren't you?"

"Yes."

"And Gibbs kept yelling at her for being too slow. Search faster, Ziver, it only takes McGee half an hour to do this!"

"I've written programs to automate most of the searching."

"That's what you do over there?"

Tim smiled. "Some of it."

"You're looking good. Did you get some sun?" Tony asked, leaning against Ziva's desk.

"Little bit. Spent a lot of time walking around Charleston and Savannah." Turns out that pink skin wasn't entirely sex flush. Mostly sex flush, but yeah, they both got a little sunburned.

"So…" Tony said.

"So… what?"

"Come on, show us!"

Tim got his phone out and began to flick through photos.

"Not that. Abby posted photos of the trip. The new tattoo."

"Who says I got one?" Abby had posted the who's a great tattoo artist question, and she posted shots of her new ink. Tim preferred to keep his under wraps. So she didn't post pics of it.

"Come on McInked, we didn't just meet you. Show us number four!"

"It's number three, Tony. I didn't actually get the heart with Mom in the middle."

"I knew that. She didn't."

Ziva laughed. "You think _I_ didn't know that."

"Why would you know that?"

"Once again, I talk with Abby and Breena."

"You guys talk about my tattoos?"

"We talk about everything. But Breena thought the idea that you would get one to impress Abby was really romantic, and that's how we got talking about your tattoos."

"How did she get the idea that I got a tattoo to impress Abby?"

"You didn't?" Ziva is looking at Tim curiously and then glanced at Tony.

"No. Not entirely. It was mostly for me. I'd been thinking about it for months before I got it." Now Tim's looking at Tony.

"You spend the whole day watching her, asking about her, acting like she's a perfect medium rare steak and you're starving. I tell you she likes guys with tats. Two minutes later you've got one. It was a pretty obvious assumption."

"Rule number eight." Gibbs said as he joined them. "Good to see you back, McGee."

"Thanks. Thought eight was never take anything for granted."

"That, too." Gibbs just stares at him, expectantly.

"How do you even know? You aren't on Facebook."

Gibbs smiled. Tim rolled up his sleeve and unsnapped his wrist cuff, showing off the Dragon-red lip print.

"You got a wrist tattoo?" Tony was puzzled by that.

"It's a good place for it." He resnapped the cuff. "The first place she suggested I put it hurt too much to think about, let alone do." Tony and Gibbs got what he meant and cringed slightly at that idea. "It didn't hurt too bad. I don't use my wrist for much, so healing up isn't an issue. Which, you know, matters when you're talking about a flesh wound during your honeymoon. I know it's there but it usually isn't visible, so I'm still in line with the dress code. And her lips fit nicely there. All around win. Why, you think it's too girly?"

Tony nodded. "Wrist tattoos are pretty girly."

Tim quickly glances around, but right this second it's just the four of them. "Then I'll be kind of girly. I'm a cop with a pregnant wife. My masculinity is proven at this point. Catch me up on this case you've had Ziva staring at a computer screen for days on."

* * *

He'd been at his desk for three minutes. Literally, he'd just sat down, turned on his computer, and opened the records Ziva had been wading through, when Abby came bouncing up.

"Look!"

So he looked.

Nothing looked new. Yeah, her hair was still long. (And long, red-streaked ponytails were almost painfully cute.) Yes, she had a new tattoo, but since he'd been with her the whole time since she got it, that wasn't much of a surprise. Sure he hadn't seen her in a lab coat in a bit over two weeks, but that didn't seem trip-up-to-the-bullpen-grinning-like-the-Cheshire- Cat worthy.

"What am I looking at?"

She unclipped her ID badge and held it out to him like a trophy.

Then he saw it and grinned, too, feeling a flash of pleasure: new pic of her, taken today, and under it, Abby McGee.


	124. Sleep

The pregnant sleeping thing was kind of scary, at first. They'd been home from their honeymoon for three days, and caught the first case back at work.

So, long day. It was well past two when they got home. They were both dragging by that point, but she got in the door, stood in front of the of the stairs, stared at them, and then just sat down.

"Abby?"

"Got to rest a little." He was giving her his _you're worrying me _look. "I'm okay, just really tired, and those are a whole lot of stairs."

He eyeballed them, and sure he's not planning on bounding up them or anything, but there's only twelve, not like they've got more than two floors. "All right. Let me get your coat." So he took both of their coats, turned his back to her to hang them up, and turned around and found her slumped against the banister, asleep.

This left Tim in something of a quandary. Wake her up? Let her sleep on the steps? (That can't be comfortable.) Pick her up? Okay, that worked, so he carefully picked her up and took her to bed, becoming more disturbed by the fact that she didn't wake up when he did it, or when he put her on the bed, or unzipped her boots and took them off. By that point he was starting to get really worried, so he put the blanket over her, and raced down the stairs to call Jimmy.

"Tim?" Jimmy didn't sound very awake.

"She didn't wake up."

He could hear Jimmy rubbing his eyes. "I'm gonna need more than that. What is going on?"

"We got home, she fell asleep on the stairs, I picked her up, put her in bed, took off her boots, and she didn't wake up!"

He can't see Jimmy's expression, but he's fairly sure it's screaming, _I can't believe you woke me up for this!_ "It's normal, Tim. She's pregnant, coming off a massive caffeine addiction, and been awake for nineteen hours. Even without that last one, she's going to sleep hard, for at least the next three months. Sometimes Breena would fall asleep in the middle of conversations at the end of a long day. I'm surprised she didn't drop off in the car on the ride home."

"She was driving." The silence on the other side stretched for a good thirty seconds until Tim said, "You'd be headslapping me if I was in range, wouldn't you?"

"Yes. From now until the baby shows up, you drive home from work, got it? And get used to her being sleepy."

"She's okay?"

"She's breathing, color looks good, heart beating, all the rest of that?"

"Yeah."

"She's just tired. It'll get better around Valentine's."

"Thanks."

"No problem." Jimmy hung up, and Tim headed to bed.

* * *

Then it got kind of cute. Up until this point, Abby's needed about thirty-five minutes of sleep for every hour he needed, so he almost never got to watch her sleep. Yes, they went to bed together, and they fall asleep together, but sometime in the middle of the night she'd usually get up, do stuff, and come back to bed later, and then, in the morning, they'd get up together.

But now, with Thanksgiving looming, Abby falls asleep pretty much every time she stops moving, and he actually likes the fact that he can just watch her.

He finds it especially cute when they settle down to watch TV, and she falls asleep in his lap.

She'll be laying there, and he can watch and pet her to his heart's content.

He just has to be gentle about it, because one time he did pet her a bit too hard, and woke her up, and okay, this isn't literally true, but it's true enough, she almost bit his hand off and made it exceptionally clear that "unless the fucking house is on fire and you are pinned under a beam and cannot carry me out" she is not to be woken up.

* * *

From there it got kind of annoying. Not to Tim, he still thought it was cute, but, she kept falling asleep at work. And well, if you're known for being high-beam perky, bounding about with endless energy, and suddenly, less than a month after your honeymoon, you start falling asleep in your lab, and well, even with a lab coat on it was kind of obvious that Abby's shirts were a whole lot tighter than they used to be, anyway, the scuttlebutt that raises is awfully accurate.

And the anonymous presents of goth-oriented baby gear are awfully cute, too. Apparently just the rumor of pregnant Abby flipped some sort of chemical switch among the assorted employees at NCIS, rendering them incapable of not buying little onesies, shoes, pacifiers, and hair bows all decked out in black with tiny little skulls on them. (Official NCIS consensus: judging from the number of pink skulls/skulls with hair bows/hair bows with skulls Baby McGee is a girl.)

But since she isn't "officially" pregnant yet, these present just appear on either his or her desk, usually with no note beyond a, "Thought this was so cute, had to buy it for you, hope you need it."

They still weren't telling anyone outside of Team Gibbs, and Team Gibbs played along, providing No-CafPow in CafPow cups, and no one outside the team knew Tim had switched to decaf for his coffee, though the three days he was biting the heads off of anyone who got too close to him caused some eyebrows to rise, but the rumors kept flying around.

* * *

So, anyway, it wasn't annoying to Tim. To anyone else who say, wanted to get the results back from some sort of trace, it was… less welcome.

"Talk to me Abbs," Gibbs said, strolling into the lab on the last Tuesday in November, and stopped short, seeing only Tim down there. "Tim?"

Tim took the No-CafPow out of Gibbs' hand, sipped it, and then shuddered. "This stuff is nasty. I don't know why you'd drink it if it didn't have any caffeine in it."

Gibbs stared at the decaf coffee next to Tim, his expression saying exactly the same thing about what Tim was drinking these days. "Where's Abby?"

He nodded at Abby's office, and Gibbs took two steps to the right, and saw her curled up on those fuzzy rugs she keeps in there, fast asleep.

"What do you need?" Tim asked.

"A functional forensics lab."

"'Round about Valentine's she'll stop sleeping eighteen hours a day. Meanwhile, Major Mass Spec doesn't like me setting him up, but I can read his print outs as well as anyone else. And he'll be done in—" And Major Mass Spec beeped. "Now."

Tim grabbed the print out and read over it. "Anti-freeze."

"Anti-freeze?"

Ducky and Palmer had been able to ascertain the vic had been poisoned and sent the samples to Abby. Abby had set them up with Major Mass Spec and set it running. A bit after that Tim wandered down to use the downstairs computers to run down financials and phone records, noticed Abby drooping, and told her to get a nap, he could keep an eye on Major Mass Spec.

"I guess it makes sense. It's green and sweet and if you mix it with alcohol and put it in a glass, a drunk person would probably drink it without noticing anything was up."

"Anything else?"

Tim shrugged. "If we can find the bottle it came from, we can link it to the stuff in the victim."

Gibbs looked significantly less than thrilled. "Great. How many millions of bottles of anti-freeze do you think are in the greater DC area?"

Tim stared at the print out a little longer. His chemistry was a bit rougher than Abby's but he thinks he's on the right track. "Forget about the bottle. This came out of a car. If we can find the car, we can match it to the victim."

"Better."

"I've also got the vic's phone records and financials done. Nothing interesting in there. I'm about a third of the way through his emails, might have something there, but still got to sift through a lot of data."

The door to the office opened, and Abby walked into the lab, rubbing her eyes. She held out a hand, and Tim gave her the print out. She glanced at it. "Anti-freeze from a car. Older model. High-end European brand, probably a BMW or Audi. They use that pink stuff, which is pretty rare in this country."

Abby got a kiss on the cheek from Gibbs. "Good work. Find anything else before your nap?"

She stretched, looking sleepy. "Nope. Looks like a pretty straight forward poisoning. The stuff under the vic's nails was grease from his job. No interesting fibers on his clothing. The only finger prints on the glass were his and the bartender's."

"Bartender's got an Audi, Boss." Gibbs notices interesting antique cars; Tim notices high-end European ones.

Gibbs smiled, turned, and headed up. Tim looked at Abby and shook his head, "Not the bartender. Our cases never get wrapped up that fast. Someone siphoned it out of his car."

She nodded. "Probably. So, go clear the bartender."

He winked at her. "On it, Boss."


	125. Things Get Tight

"How is it even possible for t-shirts to not fit?" Tim just shrugs at Abby as she keeps tossing her shirts out of the closet. It's the last Monday in November and they're getting dressed for work. "None of them fit! How can they not fit? How, Tim, how?"

"I assume you want something beyond, your breasts are bigger than they used to be?"

"I've only gained three pounds."

Tim's staring at her chest, and it's entirely possible that she has indeed only gained three pounds. But if that's true about three more have migrated from somewhere else up to her bosom.

She pulls another one on over her head. "They're supposed to stretch."

He's sitting on their bed, his own socks forgotten as he stares, smiling, and licks his lips. "That one looks nicely stretchy."

She turns and glares at him. "You are not helping."

His smile spreads wider. "Your bras don't really fit anymore, either. Is that helpful?"

"No!"

He pulled her to sit next to him on the bed and kissed her shoulder. "I have a credit card, an internet connection, and in less than five minutes we can be buying you new t-shirts and bras."

"Better." She turned to stare at the pile of t-shirts on their bed. "But we still have to get to work and no one delivers that fast."

"You're welcome to any of my t-shirts that you like."

"Too big."

He looked at her with an irked expression. "You wear them around the house all the time."

"Yeah, they aren't too big for lounging. They're perfect for lounging. I love them for lounging because they're soft and comfy and smell like you. They're like a hug I can just wear around all day. But they're too big to go with anything else I own that's even vaguely work appropriate. I can't just show up in one of your t-shirts and a pair of flannel pajama pants."

That was probably a salient point. Sure, she wears t-shirt, but they're all sort of snug and she tucks them into her skirts, and his won't look right, they're too… And then he remembered. "I've got a few t-shirts left from when I was really skinny."

That made Abby smile. "That's useful. Why do you still have them?"

He stood up, heading to his dresser. "I have no idea. They aren't cool or anything. Just basic cotton."

"As long as they don't make me look like I'm trying to see if it's possible to make a shirt rip by stuffing too much breast into it, they'll be fine."

Tim went hunting through his t-shirt drawer. "Here you go: gray, blue, and blue-gray."

"Wow, you really went above and beyond the call of duty on these."

"You mean my three for six bucks pack of t-shirts is less than the level of fashion you like."

She pulls the gray one on. It's still too big, but it's not nearly as too big as his other shirts are. "Normally, I'd say yes, but right now this is so comfortable I don't care. Okay, I can take a deep breath without fear of ripping my clothing again. So, yeah, shopping. Can't do the bras online, not until I've been measured, no idea what I'm wearing now."

Tim sits back on the bed and returns to putting on his socks. "34 D."

Abby just stares at Tim for a long minute. "And you know that how?"

He looked up at her, surprised she's finding this surprising. "I'm really good with spatial relationships and 3D images. And it's not like I'm unfamiliar with your breasts. Just trust me on this."

She kept staring at him.

He gave her an _of course I know this_ look. "Have I ever gotten you the wrong sized underwear?"

"No."

"Have I ever asked you what size you wear?"

"No."

The expression on his face says, _Well…_

"I always figured you just looked in my drawer and checked."

"I did, originally, but as you've mentioned, every single women's clothing line sizes their clothing slightly differently, and you'll notice, I've still never gotten you the wrong sized undies. Even if that does mean that I have had to send some of them back before you saw them."

"Really?" She's looking puzzled by this. Wondering where he gets these packages sent, because she hasn't seen any of them.

"Yeah. I buy them online. But I can't tell what size they really are until I see them. I've taken good advantage of Amazon's return policy."

"Huh. In that case, why haven't you ordered me new bras?"

He smiles again. "Who says I haven't?"

"Have you?"

The look on his face is pure mischief. "You'll find out soon enough." The he looks at the pile of shirts on the bed. "You know, none of your dresses fit anymore, either."

Abby sighs. "Yeah. I know. I thought the idea was you grew out of your pants first."

"Apparently not." Tim, now fully dressed, stood up and very gently kissed the top of each bosom, through the t-shirt. "I'll admit, I'm not minding this at all."

She rolled her eyes, shoved him a little, and went hunting through her skirts for something to wear to work.

* * *

For all the Goth-oriented baby gear they were accumulating, you'd think there would be Goth oriented pregnancy wear.

But apparently Goths reproduce via adoption.

It's not that there's nothing out there, it's just that... there's not a whole lot of it, (And though this is utterly bizarre, there's more goth pregnancy gear for Second Life characters than there is for actual real-life women.) and it seems to be primarily aimed at women who are a whole lot more pregnant than Abby.

T-shirts for big girls, that they could find pretty easy. But that's the same issue with wearing Tim's t-shirts. She wants shirts that are cool, have the right aesthetics, and fit, which means they need to be clingy in the right sort of way, snug along the chest and stomach. And right now snug along the stomach translates into way too tight over the chest.

And don't get her started on pants. Five days of searching online has convinced Abby that once she grows out of her pants until she gives birth and probably a bit after that, she will not be wearing pants. There is not a single pair of decent maternity pants in existence.

There were (thank God) some cute dresses that would do for both now and later. And she noticed that there were a fairly good selection of sort of modified vintage early 60s late 50s Donna Reed style dresses that actually fit really nicely. (Apparently large breasts and a small waist was the go to look back then.) And sure, that's not precisely her look, but the shaping works, and she's got a sewing machine so shortening the skirts isn't an issue. And she's not adverse to the application of dye, so though some of those dresses stayed their original pastel colors, most of them suddenly got a new coat of significantly more vibrant colors or black.

Finally, for the days when nothing fit right, (which seemed to be happening more and more often) there was what became her fall back outfit. Skirt, leggings, and one of Tim's button downs rolled up at the sleeves, top two buttons undone.


	126. A Rocking Chair

As Abby's style changed, and she kept coming into work in Tim's button downs or her 1950s dresses, more and more anonymous baby gifts kept appearing.

In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the handwriting and the messages kept changing, he'd be thinking that maybe Ziva was just going a little bonkers on the getting ready to be an Aunt thing. But the handwriting does keep changing, and the messages keep shifting, and apparently Abby is the single most popular person at NCIS because everyone wants to drop off little gifts for them.

And, of course, some not so anonymous gifts from the family showed up, as well.

Gibbs had kept Kelly's high chair. So as the team gathered at their house for Thanksgiving, (Thanksgiving used to be at Ducky's but since his mother died, Abby took over hosting, and now it's at the McGee's house. Christmas is at Gibbs' place. Fourth of July/Labor Day (depending on if they're on) is hosted by the Palmers. Shabbat is at Tony and Ziva's.) Gibbs brought with him her highchair, and a few of the toys he had made for her. Nothing very complicated, they're baby toys, old baby toys. But a set of well-loved blocks, a top, and a small rocking horse, all joined the collection of presents.

After dinner, as Tim was taking the high chair up, Gibbs grabbed the other presents (By mutual accord, they would rather cut their own throats than allow Abby to lift anything heavier than an evidence sample while pregnant, and both of them will go far out of their way to accommodate that.) and followed him upstairs.

"We're thinking this room for the nursery," Abby says, having gone ahead of them and flicking on the lights. "It gets good light, and is close enough to our room we'll be able to hear everything easily."

They have four bedrooms, one of which is mostly just sitting around waiting for new occupants. One's set up as a guest room, ready for anyone who might want to crash at their place to do so. This one is empty save for the collection of presents on the floor, and now a high chair, rocking horse, blocks and top.

Gibbs looked around at the room as he put the rocking horse down. "Gonna keep it like this?"

It had been a child's room before they moved in. The walls were a light, bright blue, somewhere between robin's egg and sky. The trim was white. And, like the rest of the house, the carpet was new, light gray.

"Sort of," Abby said. "Trees. I'm going to paint trees on the walls, and grass near the baseboard. And maybe some fairies or dragons. At least a few butterflies. Maybe some clouds and more sky on the ceiling if I can get a good match on the wall paint. Our little elf is getting her own forest."

Gibbs smiles at that, and Tim does as well. They hadn't talked about what they were doing with the nursery yet. But he likes that idea.

"Dragons between the trees?" Tim asks.

"Yeah. I mean, if I can do one that looks decent."

"You've done cartoon version of me easily enough."

"I think I can do dragons, too, but if it looks dumb, I might just settle for trees and butterflies. I know I can do that."

"Okay."

Gibbs looked around the room. "Abbs, dragons and trees is…" and he's not entirely sure how to finish that sentence, because while it's true it's something he'd never do, it's also very in tune with the family McGee. "It'll take forever, and unless this is going to be your only child, come baby number two, he'll be sitting in a plain room with a few coats of paint, and baby one will have a hand-painted mural."

"Oh. Good point." Tim gets that in a heartbeat. Mostly because of decades of his dad playing favorites, and he doesn't want that for his children.

"I've been thinking about the crib." And Gibbs had. He'd been playing with ideas, not getting too set on anything. Just because his gut says Baby McGee is a girl doesn't mean she actually is. "And that could have a place for a smaller mural. If the top of the back was fairly high and wide, that'd give you room. The dragons and trees could go there."

Tim nodded along at that idea, and added. "I bet we could find or make a mobile with the fairies on it."

Gibbs isn't sure if Tim is so set on the idea that the baby is a girl that fairies sound great for to him, or if he's just so gender neutral he doesn't mind the idea of fairies in his son's room, but he decides he doesn't need to know the answer to that.

Gibbs looked around the room one more time. "I still have Shannon's rocking chair. It's not fancy. But you'll want one... Abbs!"

She flung herself into his arms, sobbing.

Gibbs gently patted her back, staring at Tim in horror, no idea what set Abby off. Tim's looking back at him with a pretty similar expression on his face.

Meanwhile Abby snuffled and sobbed, saying something that neither of them could make out.

Finally, Gibbs caught, "Shannon's chair! The one you made her, and she nursed Kelly on!"

"Yeah, Abbs. That chair." He said, patting her back some more. What he doesn't say, but Abby appears to instinctively get, is that when he made that chair he had images of his children, grandchildren, and great grandkids in that chair. He built it to last forever and to be passed down.

And damn if that didn't make Tim's eyes water, too. Though he kept control of his voice, so he sounded fairly steady when he stepped over to Abby, rubbed her back a little, and said to Gibbs, "Don't you want it?"

"I don't use it, Tim. It just sits in Kelly's room. Though, it's got some strings attached. It goes to Tony and Ziva when they have their first baby."

Tim smiled at that. "No playing favorites between your girls?"

Gibbs rubbed the back of Tim's head. "No playing favorites between my kids."


	127. Holiday Spirit

If you were to ask him, Tim would tell you that Abby is one of the most capable people he knows. You need something done, Abby will shift heaven and earth to get it done.

That this is true has in no way negated the fact that he took one look at her with several hundred feet of Christmas lights, a lighting schematic, seven wreathes, (six little ones for the front windows, one big one for the door) a twenty foot ladder, and the tools necessary to attach said items to the house, and immediately took all of those things away from her and declared that he'd decorate the outside of the house.

It's not that he's feeling any burning need for a decorated house, let alone one bright enough to be seen from space. (First Christmas in the new house, and Abby's pulling out all the stops.) But there is no way in hell his pregnant wife is getting up on a ladder to drape lights all over their snow and ice encrusted house.

No fucking way!

Which is also not to say he's particularly enjoying the experience. It snowed twice last winter and twice the winter before that, so to make up for 2012 and 2013, 2014 was steadily dumping inch after inch of snow on them.

And in specific it's dumping inch after inch on him as he hangs more and more lights on the house.

And, though he wouldn't say it, while he was putting them up, he was sure this was going to be tacky as hell. The newest addition to the 'let's ogle homes decorated by people with too much free time and no taste' tour. (Okay, sure, they don't call it that, but every year Tony goes on the tour and brings back photos of the most incredibly tasteless Christmas decorations in the DC.)

But once it was actually up, and he walked back to the edge of their property, it looked pretty good.

In fact, the house outlined in small white lights, wreaths in all the windows, circling a glowing candle (on the inside, Abby must have gotten them up while he was on the roof), more lights circling porch railing, and, well, yeah, that looked really good.

He shot some photos of it, and, softly glowing house through a haze of thick, downy snowflakes was pretty damn close to a Hallmark Christmas Card house.

Abby came out a minute later, SLR in hand. (Yeah she takes a lot of photos on her phone, but her art shots are done on an old SLR, film, camera. If you've got three hours, she'll tell you all about how she did the artwork in her lab.)

"It's perfect!" She sounded a little breathless as she said it, rapidly shooting pics.

"Thanks." He smiled a little. Not moving anymore means the cold is staring to really settle into him, and he knows in a minute his teeth'll be chattering.

"I've got hot chocolate on the stove."

"Thank you!" That sounded significantly more heartfelt than the previous thanks. "I'm frozen!"

"Thought you would be." She took half a dozen more shots. "It's really beautiful." She kissed him, pressing in as close as she could both of them fully bundled for winter.

"You designed it. I just put it up."

She smiled at that. "Still, I want you to know I appreciate you spending two hours in the snow, which I know you don't like, putting them up for me."

He nodded, and they headed in.

* * *

He was laying on the sofa, savoring the hot chocolate and reading.

"How is it?" Abby asks, basket of holly in her arms.

"So good!" It's super dark chocolate, laced with chocolate liquor, rich with lots of milk, spiced with cinnamon, and piled high with whipped cream. He hasn't had any chocolate since their honeymoon, and this is so good it hurts. He's pretty good about the no sugar stuff, but occasional treats make life worth living.

Abby was decorating the living room, literally decking the hall with boughs of holly.

Tim put down What To Expect When You're Expecting, took another sip, and said, "Books says this is about when morning sickness usually starts."

"Not gonna happen," she said as she draped holly over their mantle.

His eyebrows rise. He was mentioning it because maybe adding saltines or something like that to the grocery list might be a good plan, but she's sounding awfully certain. "Abby?"

"Kelly and I had a chat, and I explained that I save people's lives and put killers away, and being tired all the time was already slowing me down, so I can't be tossing my cookies on top of that. She told me she understood, and thus, there will be no morning sickness."

"Okay." A few thoughts hit Tim, but he figured he could wrap most of them into a one word question. "Kelly?"

She turned toward him and grinned. "Kelly McGee. She's gonna have dark blond hair, green eyes, and love games."

That was a mental image he could get behind. (Okay, that was a mental image that made him ridiculously happy.) Then one more thought hit him. "Is Jethro going to be okay with that?"

Abby looked perplexed. "Why wouldn't he be?"

"I don't know, salt in an old wound? Every time he sees her, she won't be his Kelly."

"Oh." Abby thought about it. "Then we'll ask him first."

"Okay."


	128. McSciuto

The OB's appointment was the first Friday in December. Abby was irked at the getting it set up thing; the different people at the doctor's office kept asking for the first day of Abby's last period. But that was in August, and unlikely to be of any help.

Abby kept telling them she knew what day she ovulated on, and likely conceived, but they didn't want that date.

Finally, she just made one up. Officially the first day of her last period was October 9, fourteen days before she ovulated, and about when it should have been.

Their doctor, Andrea Draz, wanted to see them at six weeks. Which was the end of November, and the middle of a hot case, and neither of them could make it.

Which meant December 6, 2014, they were both sitting in a pleasant office, filling out forms about their insurance and Abby's health, waiting for the first baby checkup.

* * *

It blows Tim's mind how different this is in real life.

He's heard about it. Go down to Autopsy and not only is there a rather large collection of photos of Molly pinned up behind the computers but there's six shots of the new baby (who Jimmy and Breena are calling Sammy, not because they intend to name him/her that, but because it's pretty gender neutral and they know they aren't going to call the baby any variation of Sam, so it'll be easy to drop once they do have a name.) at six weeks along, and shortly after New Year's there'll be a new collection of shots of Sammy at 20 weeks.

And Jimmy is more than happy to talk anyone-who-might-ask's ear off about the whole thing.

He wrote about it. McGregor and Amy had been friends with benefits until about halfway through The Traitor Within, when things got more serious, and Most Precious started with them seeing the ultrasound of their baby. (The need for said ultrasound being what kicked them from friends with benefits to real lovers. Little known fact, yes, Tim bases all of his characters on people he knows, but that doesn't mean they lead the same lives. He likes to take the core people and then imagine what they'd do in different situations. Let all of them live somewhat different lives.)

But actually standing there, holding Abby's hand, looking at the small, grainy, white on black read out, watching that tiny heart thrum, hearing the fast woosh, woosh, woosh, just… blows his mind.

The ultrasound tech is pointing out leg buds and the tiny little beginnings of hands, and how the baby has a tail right now, but that'll go away soon, and all of the details she's talking about are sort of washing over him, blurring into a drone of white noise centered on that image of their child.

Their baby, about half an inch long, the size and shape of a small shrimp really, but theirs, and alive, and real.

And there aren't words for it. He thought there were. Thought he could find them, thought he had found them, but like how he feels about Abby, there's just… an approximation. It's the difference between reading about the sun setting over the ocean through storm clouds, gleams of red, amber, and fire orange through black and silver, and actually seeing it first hand, feeling the wind on your skin and the cool of the water between your toes as the sun vanishes.

* * *

In general, Tim and Abby are both fairly positive people. And part of that comes from the fact that both of them have a certain coping mechanism that allows them to sort of shut out/gloss over/ignore unpleasant facts.

So, while it's true it wasn't a shock that Abby automatically gets considered a high risk pregnancy just because of her age, it also wasn't the sort of thing either of them had been dwelling on. (Beyond both of them being very aware of Abby taking very good care of herself.)

And, it's also not a shock that the risks for just about every possible thing that could go wrong with a baby get higher when you start out older, but that's also something they haven't been thinking about.

But, armed with a huge stack of information, and their OB suggesting that it would be a very good idea to see about having every sort of genetic testing available done soon, it's kind of hard to shut that away. So they made an appointment for Nuchal Fold testing (see if the baby had Down's Symdrome or a host of other issues) promised to read up, and pretty much stuffed the pamphlets not directly related to the care and feeding of a pregnant woman/baby in to Abby's purse, and tried to ignore them.

It was much easier to look at the ultrasound pictures again than it was to think about what might be wrong.

* * *

They went straight from the OB appointment to Shabbat at Tony and Ziva's place. Fridays where they aren't on call that weekend and haven't caught a case tend to end pretty early for Team Gibbs these days. (Though it'll even out again in the summer when the sun stays high until after eight.)

Gibbs pulled into the parking space next to theirs just as they were shutting the doors to Abby's car.

"Gibbs! Gibbs, Gibbs, Gibbs!" Abby bounded over to him, wrapping him in a huge hug, almost before he's all the way out of the car. He's looking at Tim over her shoulder with a _it's great that you're glad to see me, but we just saw each other two hours ago_ sort of look, but Tim's grinning and pretty bouncy right now, too.

Abby finally pulls back and whips the copies of the ultrasound out of her purse. "Here, you have to see them! Look!"

Gibbs had his arm around Abby as she holds up the first of the shots, and Tim watched as a very deep, very satisfied smile spreads across Gibbs' face.

He closed on both of them, pressing up against Abby's other side, as she pointed out arm and leg buds and how the baby's the size of her thumbnail.

Gibbs kissed Abby's temple, not taking his eyes off the picture. "She's beautiful Abbs."

"We don't know if she's a she yet."

Gibbs just smiled and squeezed Tim's shoulder.

* * *

The rest of the crew cooed appreciatively over the scans once they got up to Tony and Ziva's place.

"So, what are you going to call her, you know, until you know for sure she's a she?" Breena asked.

The tradition of a temporary name took hold when Molly was still on the inside and it turned out that no one in their family liked calling a baby it. Tony had actually started it by calling her Golf Ball after Jimmy said that was about how big she was.

Which resulted in Jimmy declaring no kid of his was going by Golf Ball (so Tony kept calling her that for roughly the next four months, though Autopsy Baby, Baby Gremlin, Little Gremlin, and Palmlette, all got rotated through, as well). Breena came up with Gabe, which they both liked as a placeholder for until they knew more about their baby. (Like, for example, Gabe was a girl. In the two months between finding out Gabe was a girl and finally settling on Molly, Gabe became Gabrielle.)

Abby looked at Tim for a good tenth of a second, just long enough for him to nod. "McSciuto. After that, probably a family name. Got to make sure she's really a girl first."

"Family name, like, Gloria, right?" Breena asked.

"Glory McGee…" Tim cringed while Abby said it. "Wow… um… no. I mean, yes, that's my mom's name, but no… Don't like that at all."

"We'll pick this up later. It's time to light the candles," Ziva broke in. They gathered around the dinner table. It's traditional to have at least one candle per person at the gathering. The two main ones were on the table, the others scattered around the dining room. And while Ziva lit the two main candles, Tony turned off the lights, and lit the others.

Ziva said the first of the blessings, and then turned it over to Jimmy and Breena.

The Shabbat celebration starts with a general prayer of thanksgiving. Thanks for this day of rest. It's followed by a blessing for each child present, given by their parents.

Jimmy held Molly as Breena laid her hands on Molly's head, saying:

"Y'simcha elohim ksarah rivkah rahel v'lei'ah

Y'varech'cha adonai v'yishm'recha

Ya'eir adonai panav eilecha vihuneka  
Yisa adonai panav eilecha v'yaseim l'cha shalom."*

Tim watched, standing just behind Abby, his chin on her shoulder, hands on her hips, fingers lightly rubbing over her belly. This time next year, they'll be doing this, too. And he knows he's smiling, knows it probably looks stupid, but he doesn't care. He kissed Abby's neck, holding her close to him, thinking the blessing along with Breena, and it doesn't matter that he's not sure about the whole God thing, let alone Jewish, he deeply appreciates the value of this, and the vast respect visible in the idea of taking time out each and every week to tell your children you want the best for them and appreciate them.

He wonders idly if things could have been different with his dad if he had grown up in a culture that made time every week to bless your children, if his dad had grown up with that idea and been expected to pass it on. Hell, if he had grown up in a culture that expected you to put the working world aside one day a week and spend it resting with the people you loved. He catches Tony's eye and has the feeling that Tony's thought the same thing, maybe not right this second, but he's wondered it.

Probably wouldn't have mattered. Theoretically Catholics take Sundays off. His dad didn't. Tony's didn't either. Eli David did grow up in this culture; it didn't seem to do much for him. Not that John McGee or Tony DiNozzo Sr. were any prizes when it came to the dad lottery, but Eli David wasn't so much a different level of bad dad, as an entirely different category. Though, in trying to be fair, Tim doesn't know what Eli was like before Tali died, his family shattered, or Ari turned on him. Ziva doesn't talk about that much.

But as he pets Abby's stomach, he knows he will be a man who makes the time to be with his kids. And that the tiny person growing inside Abby is going to know that every single day of her life, she's been loved.

* * *

*May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah/May God bless you and keep you/May God's presence radiate upon you and grant you graciousness/May God's presence be with you and grant you peace.


	129. Any Man Who Was Ever Worth A Damn

He was prepared for food cravings.

Of all the traditional pregnant dad jobs, being the provider of whatever food has to be eaten right now was something he was ready, willing, and able to do.

He was kind of surprised when there really weren't all that many of them.

Mostly it was just frozen wild blueberries.

He's got no idea what's in frozen wild blueberries that Kelly might want, (Yeah, they call her McSciuto in front of the others. They aren't planning on asking Gibbs about Kelly until they know for a fact she's a she, but when they're alone they call her Kelly.) but whatever it might be, she really, really wants it.

A lot of it. All the time.

They got a Costco membership for one reason and one reason only, they're the only place nearby that sells five-pound bags of frozen wild blueberries. And yeah, they get some curious stares when they're in line with only three bags of blueberries in the cart.

And they need them because Abby's going through about two pounds of blueberries a day.

Which isn't to say there's not the occasional I have to have (insert name of food here) right this second or I will go insane. There's been some of that. (Three days earlier when Abby had a melt-down because there were no candy bars with nougat in the vending machine caused everyone to just sit and stare at her in utter, speechless shock.) But for the most part, as long as Abby has a CafPow cup full of frozen blueberries and a spoon handy, she's good.

* * *

"I'm not helpless!" Abby said, standing next to the trunk of her car, glaring at Tim as he grabbed every single grocery bag in it.

"I know," Tim said, groceries piled high in his arms.

"Then let me take some of them in," she said as she slammed the trunk of the roadster shut.

"Nope. Though if you felt like getting the door for me this would be a lot easier." Yeah, he can carry the whole load in one go, but he can't do that and open the door to their home.

"You look like an idiot trying to get all of them in one trip."

"Then I'll look like an idiot. If I don't grab them all, you grab them."

"Because I can get them. Carrying a few grocery bags is not an issue."

"Do you want to stand out here in the cold and argue with me about this, or do you want to open the door so we can argue about it inside where it's nice and warm?"

Abby glared at Tim, again, but did head over and open the door, because honestly it's pretty damn cold out there. Rumor has it that the thermometer might get to the low 30s today, but he's fairly sure that isn't going to happen.

"Thank you," Tim said, stomping snow off his boots on the porch and heading into the kitchen, relieved to be able to put the groceries down, because honestly, it was too much to take in one trip.

"You pull your back doing that, and I'm not rubbing it."

"I can hold you up for a half hour, the groceries aren't going to be a problem." And they aren't from a too heavy perspective; it's just awkward to try and hold a whole cart's worth at one time.

He headed back to the foyer, hung his coat up, and put his boots away.

"I don't like being treated like I'm made of glass." Abby sat on the bottom step and unzipped her boots.

"I know."

"So why are you doing it?" She took her coat off and handed it to him. He hung it up.

Tim shrugged. "Because I can. Because you're the mother of my child and I want to protect, pamper, and baby you. Because this is the only time I'll get to do this. Next time you're pregnant, we'll have an actual baby to baby. And because, if you slip on the damn ice because you were carrying a grocery bag and couldn't see the path or something, not only will Jethro slap me upside the back of the head with a two by four, a two by four that Jimmy will go out and buy for him for precisely that purpose, I'll deserve it because there's only one job a pregnant father has and that's keeping his wife in good shape."

"And if I slip on the ice and fall and you can't catch me because you're carrying every grocery bag all at once?"

Tim stared her right in the eye and said, voice dead serious, "I'll catch you. Eggs'll get broken, but you won't hit the ground."

It's possible that Abby could have rolled her eyes harder, but it's not likely.

He shrugged and sighed at that. "Look, just chalk it up to insane pregnant daddy stuff, and leave it there. Jimmy did it for Breena. Jethro did it for Shannon. Tony's going to do it for Ziva until she pulls a knife on him. It's what we're designed to do. Seriously, there's only one reason men exist and that's to keep their women and kids alive and well. If we were hunter-gathers, it'd be my job to kill the wooly mammoths, bring their bodies to you, and then fight off the wolves. The least I can do is drag some groceries in from the car."

"Uh huh." This line of argument was not impressing her. "Do I need to pull a knife on you?"

"I'd really rather you didn't." He's leaning back against the door to the coat closet. "Is it that annoying?"

She's sitting on the bottom step, arms crossed over her chest, looking angry and defensive. "It's pretty damn annoying! I'm a grown woman. I've run my own lab for over a decade. And as Chip found out, I can handle myself. And it's not just you. Suddenly Gibbs has also decided that anything involving any physical effort is just too much for me and I can't be allowed to do it."

"Gibbs failed!" His voice was quiet, but very intense as he said it.

"What?" That completely derailed Abby's anger, and confusion replaced it. She wasn't following where he was taking this.

"His woman and child didn't make it, and if you ever pump enough alcohol into him to shut down his defenses, like I have, he'll tell you that. He failed at the job that mattered the most to him. He ran into your lab, in front of a bomb, to get to you because either both of you were going to die or neither of you, but he wasn't going to bury you. He can take grief. Jenny, Mike, Kate, that was grief. But if he fails another daughter, and these days that's you and Ziva, or another child, that's our Kelly, and it'll break him for good. He'll crawl into that basement and eat his gun. So, no, he's not about to let you do anything that might carry even the slightest risk of anything happening to you when he's around. And God have mercy on all of us when Ziva gets pregnant because her on anything other than desk duty will drive him insane. He's failed as many times as he can take; he's not going to do it again!"

"He didn't fail. No one could have… He didn't fail!" Abby looked utterly horrified at not just that idea but that Tim would say it.

He knelt in front of Abby, his hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eye, sounding heartbreakingly earnest. "We're designed for one job and one job only: protect your woman and kids or die trying. Rule Number 44. You're supposed to outlive us; that's the point of it; that's the goal. And if your wife and kids are dead, and you're still breathing, you failed. And no, it wasn't his fault. No, there was nothing he could have done to change it. It was completely out of his control. But he still failed. I know it, Jimmy knows it, Tony knows it, any man who was ever worth a damn knows it. And Gibbs knows it, feels it every single day.

"I've been with him for twelve years now. I sat in his basement and actually got him to talk. I've seen some of the pictures of Kelly and Shannon. And I know exactly how broken he is, and have a good idea of how broken he was, and the idea of being him scares the living hell out of me. So, look, I'm sorry this bugs you, but, just, please, take pity on me and let me do this." She was softening, but wasn't entirely convinced. And he was staring at her eyes wide, breath coming fast, sounding anything but calm or collected. "Okay, on a rational level, I know that you carrying in the groceries, or putting up the Christmas tree, or driving us home at night isn't a problem. Yeah, the sane part of me knows that. But I'm still scared, and doing things for you gives me something I can control, because there's seventy million things out there I can't control." His eyes close at that and he remembers everything he read in the high risk pregnancy pamphlets. Usually he's pretty good at not thinking about it, but right now it's very fresh in his mind. "I can't make sure she doesn't have Down's Syndrome. I can't make sure she's healthy. I can't keep your or her heart beating. But I can carry in the fucking groceries, I can shovel the snow, I can get up on the ladder to put the Christmas lights up, and I can drive us home from work, so, just, let me, okay?"

She wrapped him in her arms and held onto him for a long time, until his breathing went back to normal and he felt calm to her. Her head rested on his shoulder, lips against his throat, feeling his heart slow back down to normal. "Okay." She pulled back and kissed his forehead, then smiled, trying to lighten things. "So, does carrying in the groceries extend to putting them away?"

He caught her desire to shift the mood and played back with her. "Nope. That's totally your job." He winked at her. "I just lugged the damn things in. You can put them away." She snorted a laugh, and he kissed her quickly on the lips. "Come on, let's get them put away."

"Sounds good. Lunch after?" she asked as they headed into the kitchen.

"Sure, maybe some Supernatural after that?"

"For you," Abby began taking food out of the bags. "I'll be asleep before the first person gets murdered. Is it murder when a monster or spirit does it?"

"Probably not. It's got to be illegal to be a murder, and the law doesn't cover monster and spirits." Tim held up the package of chicken breasts. "For dinner?"

"Sure. Stir fry 'em with the broccoli?"

He nodded and located the broccoli, setting them aside.

"Okay, I'll be asleep before the first person gets killed."

"Then you can nap on me, and I'll watch Supernatural."

* * *

Rule 44: First things first, hide the women and children.


	130. Saturday Afternoon

Occasionally, Tim does believe in God, and when he does he often finds himself thinking that He's got a pretty perverse sense of humor.

The reason he's thinking this is Abby's breasts.

He's always appreciated them. Okay, that's an understatement. He loves them. Loves the way they look, feel, smell, respond when he touches them. Everything there is to love about a pair of breasts, he loves about hers.

And right now, Pregnant Abby breasts are even better than Regular Abby breasts. They're so soft and round and big and sensitive and he would very happily spend hours playing with them.

Which is where God's perverse sense of humor comes in. Nine weeks pregnant Abby is, without a doubt, the most beautiful, sexy, hits all of his buttons so hard he'd be walking around with an erection all the time if he was still sixteen, (And honestly, at less than a week past thirty-seven, he's adjusting himself a lot more than he used to, and appreciating the fact that his jeans just don't allow enough movement for him to really embarrass himself when, say, Abby's at work in a short skirt and one of his button downs, gaping just a bit, and she sort of bends a little.) incarnation of Abby he's ever seen. So, of course, nine-weeks pregnant Abby also sleeps eighteen hours a day.

So, in addition to having to live with, sleep next to, and work with the hottest woman in creation, the amount of sex in his life has dropped significantly.

It's Saturday afternoon, and they're on the sofa, watching Supernatural. (How they didn't run into it sooner, he has no idea, but on the upside they've still got five seasons to go through before they catch up.) And while he's happily watching Sam and Dean snark their way through middle America killing demons right and left, her head lands on his lap and ten seconds later she's asleep.

The episode was over, and now there's this soft, pleasant weight in his lap, and for a moment he was just gently petting her hair, (Which is also fabulous these days. She had the extensions taken out a few weeks ago, but it's still longer, fuller, glossier, wavier, and softer than ever before.) looking at her, thinking about how beautiful she is, mostly in an innocent, look-how-pretty sort of way, when he notices that the t-shirt she's wearing (one of the new ones) is cut kind of low, so he can see the tops of her breasts, and it's pretty tight, and kind of thin, so he can see her nipples through the fabric, too.

Soft, round, full breasts, pressed up gently against each other, and big enough that he could rub between them, which is something they can't really do normally, and the idea of what all that beautiful soft skin wrapped around him would look like, let alone feel like, settles in his dick, making it harden.

But she's asleep. Warm breath easing in and out against his thigh. He pets her hair again, watches his left hand ease down her throat, and he diverts it and makes it rest on her shoulder. He's not sixteen, and no matter how horny he is, and how much he wants to suck each nipple, see if he can get her off by doing it, (she's more sensitive now than she was on their honeymoon) and then lube himself up, straddle her, and rub off between her breasts, he's not the guy who molests his pregnant wife while she's sleeping. He's especially not the guy who does it after being flat out told not to wake her up.

He hits the play button, tearing his eyes away from her breasts, and of course, there's like one sex scene per season on Supernatural, so somehow he ends up watching the two episodes with back to back sex scenes. And Sam and Dean each get a girl (okay, technically one of them is a demon) and the girl with the red hair and the white bra sliding all over Dean in the Impala is not helping at all with the whole so-horny-I-want-to-explode issue.

And Abby just sighs a little and snuggles into his lap closer, rubbing her head gently against his erection, killing him slowly, and settles deeper into sleep.

He's wishing he was wearing the kilt, because if he was, he could just scoot like an inch to the right, jerk off, and take care of the issue without waking her up. And yeah, it'd have to be pretty slow, because her head is on his left leg, and he'd have to do it with his right hand, and, well, okay, they don't have any tissues nearby, but he's got socks on so that could take care of the mess, but it doesn't matter because he's in pajama pants and the way she's laying on them is keeping them pretty tight, and it just isn't going to work.

She rolls over, facing him and not the TV, somehow finding a position where her breasts are pushed together even more firmly, and she's twisted so the flannel pajama pants she has on are pulled tight over her ass, dipping low so he can see the small of her back, and she's got it stuck out just a little, and, like her breasts it's so soft and full and curvy and warm and somehow her head's turned and he can feel her breathing on his dick through the soft cotton of his jammie pants, and he is biting his lip, cursing that the single hottest woman in the history of womanhood is on his lap, exhaling moist, hot air against his very hard, very sensitive dick and sound asleep.

He's clutching the remote like he's about to beat it to death for mortally offending each and every single member of his entire family, staring at the TV with grim resolve that he will not reach down, slip his hand under her shirt, and begin to stroke her nipples. He's thirty-seven, he can control himself. And she needs her sleep. She's made it very clear that unless the world is about to end, she does not want to be woken up.

So he's not going to do it.

He's going to sit there and be the most sexually frustrated pillow ever.

She shifts a little more, and now her mouth is pressed against his dick.

He closed his eyes, refusing to look, because if he looks, he's going to touch, and if he touches he's going to wake her up.

"God, Tim, what am I going to have to do to get you to touch me? Pull it out and suck it?"

"You're awake?"

"Ish." Her eyes haven't opened, but she's definitely lipping his dick through his pants.

It takes about thirty seconds, but he's out of his pants and lying on the sofa spooned up behind her, nuzzling her neck and cupping her breast in his hand. "All you have to do is let me know you aren't sleeping."

"I'm not sleeping."

"Thank God!"

"You don't believe in God."

"Then thank you."

"You're welcome. Help me get out of these pants."

"Yes!"

About another thirty seconds later she's kicking them off as his hand snakes under her shirt to stroke her breasts.

"Been staring at them for hours," he says, whole hand lightly circling over her breast. "Been thinking about licking them, sucking on them, just grazing my teeth over them."

"Hours?"

"Yeah, you've been snuggled up in my lap for three Supernatural episodes, and I don't know what this shirt's made out of, but it just clings to you," he's tugging on it, trying to pull it up, but the fact that she's laying down makes that a little less effective than he'd like. If he had a knife anywhere nearby he'd be really tempted to cut if off of her, one of her few decent fitting t-shirts or not.

But he didn't. She rolls him onto his back, then sits up, straddling his hips, and pulls it over her head.

"God, you're so beautiful." His hands land on her hips and he holds her in place while he sits up, twists around, and gets them sitting with his back against the sofa. "Perfect." Like this her breasts are right at mouth level on him, and she can ride him at whatever pace and depth she likes.

As they found out last week, at an especially inopportune moment, these days too deep really hurts. Which means these days he's pretty nervous about any position where he controls the depth.

She slips down onto him, and he hisses at how good it feels. Tight, wet, hot, and wrapped around him, so so good.

She's moving slowly, not much up and down, mostly just rolling her hips, but with every roll her breasts jiggle a little, and he's watching them, mesmerized, fingers very gently feathering over her nipples, tracing the newly visible veins along her chest.

He takes her nipple into his mouth, alternating soft, light sucks with pulling gently with his teeth. Her hands clench in his hair as she throws her head back and moans, so he figures she likes that.

"Good?"

"God, Tim, don't stop!"

He rolls his tongue over her nipple as he lightly strokes down both sides of her breast with his fingers. "How about this?"

A long, deep moan is his answer.

He uses his fingernails to scrape, lightly, on one nipple while he went back to the soft, wet sucks on the other. He's settling into what he considered a nice, steady rhythm, alternating soft and sharp sensations when Abby suddenly tightens on him, holding his head against her chest, high-pitched moans coming faster and breathier, and then she sort of lightly twitched all over, her pussy softly rippling against him.

She relaxes against him, catching her breath, and he kisses her shoulder.

"Ummm… was that?" Not that he's unfamiliar with what Abby getting off looks, feels, tastes, sounds, and smells like, but that was a whole lot faster and gentler than normal.

She gives him a sort of sleepy, satisfied smile. "Oh yeah."

"Wow." Sure, they've done quickies before, but that was like, three minutes, and he wasn't touching her clit.

"Increased blood flow to the pelvis is pretty nice."

"So it seems."

"Everything is a whole lot more sensitive."

He nods. "So, sensitive like, stop touching me, or sensitive like, two or three more rounds seems like a really good idea?"

Her smile widens. "At least one more round." She squeezes against him. "Can't be done yet, you haven't gotten off."

"There is that." He grinds against her, and she sighs, pleased. "So, would you like it if I got down on the floor, spread your legs wide, and saw how fast I could get you off by licking your clit?"

She kissed the tip of his nose, looking very pleased. "I could go for that."

He pulls her face down, and kisses her long and slow, his tongue making explicit promises of what's to come, then breaks away to say, "What if I wanted to see how long I could lick it before I got you off?"

That got a hot look and a long, hard tongue-trusting kiss from her. "That doesn't sound bad, either."

"And after that, I want to go back to your breasts. I want to straddle you and slide between them."

"That sounds good." She slips off of him, and scoots down so her hips are even with the edge of the sofa.

Their sofa probably wasn't designed with sex in mind. Probably. Who knows? But it's sturdy, offers good back support, (the reason they kept her sofa and not his. His sofa might have been okay for napping, but wasn't nearly firm enough for anything friskier than spooning.) and is the exact right height for Abby to sit on it while Tim knelt in front of her and slipped in, or stood and she blew him.

What it isn't great for is oral where he's on the giving side of the equation. It's about two inches too low for that. (Well, the seat's two inches too low. The arm's about three inches too high, and doesn't offer good leg support for her. And the back… well… yeah… let's just say that while this sofa is sturdy, it wasn't designed to handle a large load on the back vigorously bouncing around, and that if you do something like that it tips over, and well, that just wasn't much fun, at all.)

But, well, the occasional sore neck is a minor price to pay for the sublime joy of Abby coming on his tongue. And after all, if you aren't willing to sacrifice for your art, what kind of man are you? (Writing? Writing is his hobby; it's a craft. He bangs out solid, satisfactory mysteries with an occasional really great line or scene. But fucking Abby, that's his art. The feeling that gives him, the passion going into doing it, that's the reason art exists. If he were a painter, her body would be his favorite canvas. If he was a musician, she'd be his favorite instrument. And as a poet, her moans and cries are his favorite verse.)

And even with the idea of slow, she's on enough of a hair trigger right now that he was only able to spin her out for ten minutes.

Ten very good minutes. Ten minutes of light, slow, gentle licks, just bare hints of the tip of his tongue ghosting over her, while she squirmed and moaned and cursed, pulling on his hair, begging him for harder or faster.

He didn't go faster, Abby gently slipping into a slow climax is amazing, and he loves watching it. He did go harder, rolling his tongue over her in focused, firm circles, increasing his pressure as she arched her hips against his mouth.

This time he's expecting it. He felt her body tighten, heard her moans go higher pitched, felt her clench and twitch, body shaking against him.

He rests his face against her thigh, letting her come down, enjoying hearing her post-orgasmic purring, as she lightly petted his hair.

After a few minutes she says, "So what's this about my breasts?"

He looks up at her. "I was thinking that if you were to sort of kneel." She starts to shift, but he keeps her still, his hand on her hips. "Not yet. We'll need lube for this, and I don't feel like getting up and going to the bedroom for it, especially not when," he kisses her pussy, wet and soft lips and tongue slipping along her, "you're right here and very wet and slippery. Anyway, if you were to sort of kneel, sit with your feet under you, and lean back against the sofa, and if I were to straddle your legs and kneel, I'd be at just the right height to rub off between your breasts."

"And you want to do that?" He's never mentioned being interested in that before, so she's a little surprised at it.

"Been dreaming about it for hours now. You were lying on your side, and they were pressed up against each other, and all I could think about was what it would feel like to slip between them."

She grins, and then presses her breasts together and up. "Sounds good."

He leans forward to kiss each one. "So beautiful." Then he shifts from sitting to kneeling, and thrust into her, reveling in the feel of her body on his, watching himself fuck her. "This is awfully nice, too."

She sits up and kisses him. "Don't get distracted." Then pulls off of him, settles her feet under her, and uses one hand to hold her breasts together.

He takes in the full image of her, kneeling on the sofa, breasts together, waiting for him. "Oh… That looks so good."

"Bet it feels better."

He hops onto the sofa, her legs between his, and scoots a little closer, slipping his dick between her breasts. "Oh, FUCK!" And yeah, it looks exactly as good as he thought it would and feels about a thousand times better. "I really hope you like being pregnant because I'm keeping you this way as long as I possibly can."

She giggles at that, dips her head, and licks the tip of him as he thrust up.

"Oh…" His teeth clench as he watches her do it. "That's even better."

He set a fairly quick pace, grabbing the back of the sofa for balance, not wanting to stretch this out any further. A few strokes in she says, "Bet I can make this better."

He feels her hand on his balls, rolling them, tugging gently, and yeah, that is better, that is so better, that is all sorts of better, and he actually growls at her when she takes that hand away.

"Hush." She grazes her teeth over the head of his dick. "You'll like this."

He can't see what she's doing with that hand, but he has a general idea of where it has to be, between her legs, and he isn't sure if she's rubbing herself off or not, because the only thing he's looking at is his dick slipping between her breasts, plump white flesh wrapped around him, and her tongue lapping at the tip as it pokes out from between them.

But he certainly feels it when a slick finger slips behind his balls and starts to ease its way inside of him. And fuck that was… just… She twists it, finds what she's looking for, and presses forward.

"Oh, God, shit! Abby!" Fuck that feels good, and he's so close that the only thing keeping him from cumming all over her is the fact that she doesn't like it, and it occurs to him he didn't think this part through very well, and "Fuck!" she twitches her finger just a little more, rubbing his prostate, and, "Oh God!" she bends her head, takes the tip of him into her mouth, sucks hard, and he's just gone, riding the pleasure coursing through his body.

When he's paying attention again, he notices her gently nuzzling his belly. This is also when it occurs to him that he got her naked, but he's still in his t-shirt and socks.

"You liked that?" she asks.

"Oh yeah!" He sits back on the sofa, next to her and looks at the back of it. "Left grip marks on the sofa."

It's made of that microfiber suede-style stuff that shows where and how you touch it. It feels really nice, but if you ever touch it, it leaves marks.

She giggled at that, and got up to wash off. A minute later she was back with a warm, wet washcloth and he took care of himself.

She's up, doing something, and he's just sort of laying around, dozing on the sofa.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"C'mere." He holds out his hand to her, and she takes it. He tugs her back onto the sofa and spoons up behind her.

"I'm going to fall asleep if I lay down again."

"So? I'm going to fall asleep, too."

"Be nice to get something done besides sleeping today."

"We got groceries and had sex. Eventually we'll make dinner, maybe have more sex. That's a full day."

She laughs at that.

"I'll get cold."

He reaches behind himself, grabs the blanket from the back of the sofa, and tosses it over them. "I'll keep you warm. Get a nap with me. Then we can stay up late tonight."

"Okay."


	131. Sunday

"Hey Gibbs."

"Abbs?"

Gibbs stepped away from his boat and looked at her, really surprised to see her in his basement. She supposed that made sense, she hadn't been here for a one on one since…

Kyle.

Since before she started dating Tim. Since before Gibbs stopped being the most important man in her life. She made a mental note to visit more often. She didn't think Gibbs had been feeling neglected, but still…

"You okay?"

"Oh, yeah." She stood next to him, noticing how in her boots she's taller than he is. Then she said, "This is for running into a bomb blast _for me_." And she kissed him on the cheek, wrapping him in a warm hug. "And this." She slapped him upside the back of the head. "Is for _running into a bomb blast_ for me."

"Abby?" Gibbs looked really surprised. It's been two and a half years since that happened. It's beyond old news. And he can't for the life of him figure out why she'd be thinking about it now, let alone come over to his house to slap him about it.

"I didn't know you were in the clear and came back for me. I thought you were in the building and got the warning and came for me. I didn't know…"

He just shrugged, of course he'd go to her. Bombs, bullets, fire, or knives, as long as he's alive, he'll go to her. As he said to Tomas when he was wondering if Gibbs might have been his dad, there are no second chances. What's done is done and can't, won't come back. But Abby was as close to a second chance as he'll ever get, she's the chance he can't lose. She's his lifeline, and it's not a coincidence that every year she's been in his life, he's been getting closer and closer to who he used to be.

She watched his face, saw it in his look, saw Tim was right, and then wrapped him in a tight hug and started crying.

He patted her back, rubbing his hand up and down it in a soothing manner, still feeling really perplexed about this whole thing.

Eventually she cried herself out, and pulled back a little.

"So, you going to tell me what this is all about?" he asked while wiping away her tears with his handkerchief.

She nodded and sat down on the second from the bottom step. Gibbs smiled a little, she sits in the same place, same posture as Tim does. He sat next to her, keeping is arm around her shoulders.

"I got into a fight with Tim." Gibbs looks disturbed by that, and she sees it and keeps going. "Maybe not a fight. An argument? Yeah, that's better. He's been treating me like glass lately, and _so have you_." She glared at him. "And I was telling him how _annoying_ it was. I'm not a baby, and I can carry my own damn groceries in."

"Okay." He had the look on his face Abby had categorized as _Danger! Rocks ahead!_

"And he was talking about how it's a man's job to protect his wife and kids or die trying."

Gibbs nodded. He agreed with that wholeheartedly, but was more than a little fuzzy on what that had to do with who carries the groceries, but obviously this makes sense to Abby, so he skipped the grocery bit and got to the heart of it. "He wouldn't be on my team if he didn't feel that way. Wouldn't have let him anywhere near you. Man who doesn't believe that doesn't deserve a wife or kids."

"And he said you failed, and…"

And Gibbs finally thought he had the pieces put together, or at least enough of them to have a clue as to what was going on. Tim was probably trying to explain what was going on. Abby was mad, and he was explaining. Because that's what he does, he explains. He doesn't just shrug and go quiet. No, he puts everything into words, and now he's got a crying girl in his basement because her husband had to _explain._

"God you think you did, don't you? I was hoping he was wrong. But he's not. You didn't fail, Gibbs. No one could have done anything better or different or…" Her tears started again and she sniffed loudly, wiping them away, keeping talking. "And it breaks my heart to think that you've been carrying that around, or that you might think you could ever fail me.

"You could never fail me, Gibbs. When I was seventeen, I was sure I'd never have a dad again. That there'd always be this huge, gaping hole where he used to be. And, don't get me wrong, I still miss him, every day I wish I had had more time with him. But I've had fifteen years with another dad because of you.

"And you didn't fail Kelly. I've seen dads who failed. And you aren't one of them. Eli failed. He left Ziva to die. John failed. He screwed up his relationship with Tim so badly that Tim won't talk to him. But not you. You didn't fail."

He sighed and rubbed her back some more, tried to turn the subject. "There's still hope for Tim and John."

She shook her head. "He doesn't want it. He's been hurt enough by that man. But that's the point of it. You didn't do that. You didn't fail Kelly or Shannon, and they wouldn't think you failed them, either. You just… weren't lucky."

He shrugs that off. Everyone he was still talking to after they died told him that. Didn't make it feel any better. Didn't change the fact that he re-upped for five years in January of '91 so he could get his twenty years in, didn't change the fact that he asked for a tour in Desert Storm because he couldn't stand to be home and safe while other men were putting their lives on the line, didn't change the fact that he couldn't convince her not to testify, and it didn't change the fact that he didn't go AWOL the second he heard there had been threats made against them. He let someone else protect his family and because of that, they're gone, and he's still here.

"I didn't put them first, Abbs. Rule eight. I took the idea that they'd always be there for granted."

"Oh, Gibbs!" That was followed by ten more minutes of sniffling and crying against his chest, more back patting, and Gibbs sincerely wishing that whatever the hell it was Tim said, that he hadn't said it. Because, as he said to Ziva once, he's also 'not good with the women and the crying,' and it doesn't matter that this is one of his two favorite ladies on earth, she's still a crying woman in his arms, and he hates that because he can't fix it. He's just got to sit here, useless, and get battered by her distress.

Finally she stopped crying, again, and pulled back, again, to look at him, eyes red and puffy, skin blotchy from her crying, and her voice rough from the sobbing. "Look, something happens, there's another bomb, I want you to run your ass away from it!"

Gibbs looked her in the eyes and nodded, as solemnly as he can. He's lying, of course, but he's got no compunction about lying about this. Do not upset the pregnant lady if you can avoid it was the original Rule Number 12.

"Don't give me that."

"Didn't say anything."

"Yeah and I know what you're not saying. What you're not saying is first hint of danger and in I go to save the day. You want/need to protect me, fine, but I want you to erase the words 'or die trying' from the end of that sentence. You are my dad, you're Tim's dad, you're McSciuto's grandpa, you're Ziva's dad, you're Tony's Ducky and Ducky's best friend, you're Molly and Sammy's Uncle Jethro, you're Amira' godfather, you're LJ's godson, and you're Jackson's son. You are precious to a lot of people, and maybe when you were all alone the idea of 'or die trying' made sense, but it doesn't now. Like it or not, you're our clan's patriarch, and that requires you to be around. You've got kids and grandkids who need you, so none of this 'or die trying' shit. You can die succeeding. But none of this trying stuff. No suicide runs so you don't have to face the next dawn. We're all here, and we're all together, and we will get each other through whatever comes next. So you make sure you're here for it!"

Gibbs nodded and kissed Abby's forehead.

She stared at him, decided that that was about as good as she could get out of him, and said, "Better."

Eventually he said to her, "You and Tim okay?"

"Huh?" She looked genuinely surprised at the idea that he'd ask that. Then it clicked. "Oh, yeah, argument. Yeah, we're fine. Over yesterday. I didn't realize the babying me was a coping mechanism for him. Yeah, it's still annoying, but him feeling scared and helpful is better than him feeling scared and helpless, so I'm biting my tongue and letting him do it."

Gibbs smiled at that. Of course, the explaining thing might have benefits on occasion. Some of the bigger arguments he'd had over the years with different wives have boiled down to an unwillingness to say the words, "I'm scared."

She sat next to him for a few minutes, head resting on his shoulder, just soaking up the quiet. "I love you."

"Love you, too, Abby." He kissed her forehead.

"You're going to be an awesome grandpa."

He nodded at that, smiling. "Gonna teach that baby girl of yours how to sail on this thing."

"Yeah, you are."


	132. A Question For Dr Palmer

"Ducky, can I borrow Jimmy?" Both Jimmy and Ducky looked up at him as Tim headed into Autopsy and said that.

It was a paperwork day, so grabbing Jimmy for coffee shouldn't be an issue, but it's still a good idea to ask before grabbing.

"Certainly Timothy, though, were you to return with hot water for tea as well as Jimmy, it wouldn't go amiss."

"No problem, Ducky. Come on."

They were in the elevator, and Tim had it stopped before Jimmy asked, "So what's going on?"

"I want to ask you a medical question."

"Fire away."

"It's about Abby."

Jimmy shrugged a little. "Tim, I'm not an obstetrician, I'll give you the best answer I can, but… I might not be the right guy to ask."

"Well, since I'd rather not ask our sixty-year-old, female OB this, how about I ask you as guy who pays attention when he has sex with his pregnant wife? And if you don't know, I'll google the hell out of it on Tony's computer."

Jimmy was staring at him like he's insane.

"It's personal. And I still need to get him back because he thought it'd be fun to download a ton of Elf porn on mine last week."

"Elf porn?"

Tim rolled his eyes. "Yeah, for as vanilla as he is in real life, he's got no problem coming up with some fairly nasty kinks when he's pranking me."

Jimmy was still just staring at him.

"Stuff you never, ever wanted to see Legolas doing."

"Which one was Legolas?" Yes, Tim's read everything JRR Tolkien wrote, and all the commentary to go with it. But Jimmy got about a hundred pages into The Fellowship of the Ring before deciding it was painfully boring and putting it down. He's seen the movies, and liked them, but was still kind of fuzzy on who was who.

"Orlando Bloom."

Jimmy looked really surprised at that. "He found porn staring Orlando Bloom?"

"No, it was animated. But, let's put it this way, there was a really unhealthy level of attraction between him and his arrows and quiver."

"Ullgh..." Jimmy shuddered and winced. "Splinters?"

"I'd assume so."

"Yuck! So, what's up?"

"She… tastes different, is that normal?"

Jimmy smiled. "Less acidic?"

"Yeah."

He smiled even wider. "Her body's Ph changes when she's pregnant. Everything else the same?"

"Yeah."

"Fluids clear?"

"Yeah."

"Still tastes good to you?"

"Uh huh."

"Don't worry about it. Because of the shift, she can get yeast infections easier than usual, but as long as things still taste and smell good, and stay clear, she's fine."

"Thanks."

Jimmy nodded. "I can see not wanting to ask the OB that."

Tim wasn't exactly blushing, but his face certainly shows discomfort at the idea of having this chat with their obstetrician. "Yeah, I mean, obviously, we have sex, that's the whole reason we're there, after all, but…"

"Yeah."

"Anything else I should know about?"

Jimmy grinned, big smug smirk on his face. "All of her pink parts'll get redder, usually more sensitive. That's normal, too."

"Noticed that." Tim smiled, remembering Saturday.

"Yeah, a pregnant wife, assuming you can keep her awake and not throwing up long enough to have sex, is real a treat."

"So far throwing up isn't a problem."

"Yeah, but awake on the other hand…" Jimmy's delivered more than a few samples to a sleeping Abby over the last month.

"Yep."

Tim flicked the elevator back on.

Jimmy flicked it back off. "So, you actually watched the elf porn long enough to find out what it was about?"

"Errrr…" Tim looked horrifically embarrassed by that. "He had it labeled Hobbit Trailer/Concept Art. And he's a movie guy. And it was two days before my birthday, so it wasn't impossible he was trying to do something nice for me."

"Uh huh…" Jimmy's giving him the _are you really this gullible? _look.

"Anyway, it took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on. And I'd already called Abby over to see it, and she wanted to know what it was, and well, if I scrambled around trying to turn it off on a second's notice, she would have laughed at me, so I kept it playing, and… there are some things you just can't unsee. Worst use of fletching, ever." Tim shuddered.

Jimmy laughed for a good long minute at that. Then said, "So, since googling is out, what are you going to do to get him back?"

"I'm thinking of sending his Rabbi a Bacon of the Month Club subscription as a Christmas gift in his name."

Jimmy's jaw dropped. "Oh… That's terrible!"

Tim looked very satisfied at that reaction. "Thank you."

"Though if you want to be able to go to his wedding, which since you're the best man is kind of important, let alone not get accused of a hate crime, you might want to skip that plan."

Tim winced, realizing that yeah, that probably was a few steps too far. "Good point. I'll figure something out. He's not too hard to fluster if you know the right buttons to push. Might send Gibbs some more of that honey dust stuff..."

"What?"

"You didn't hear that story?"

"No!"

Tim flicked on the elevator and filled Jimmy in over their coffee break.


	133. Christmas Eve

Technically Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are NCIS holidays. And just like all other NCIS holidays, the different teams rotate through being on and off duty for them. The fact that Team Gibbs has worked every Christmas Eve since, well, Tim's been there, has been because Gibbs makes sure their team has Christmas off, really off. In twelve years, they've never had a Christmas on call. Which doesn't mean there haven't been Christmases they've worked, but when that happens it's spillover. Case that went hot before Christmas.

But this year, something else went hot, or cold, really, on December 23rd, and was still howling along at full speed come December 24th.

Tim wonders if they're going to start naming winter storms. This is the third winter in a row that a massive snow storm has shut the federal government down, and short of a body getting found/someone being kidnapped, NCIS is closed.

Which he isn't minding at all. It's the middle of the week, they've, provisionally, got today and tomorrow off, and since there's nowhere to go, he doesn't have to try and shovel the foot and a half of snow that's fallen since last night off the driveway. (And he'll admit that part of putting it off, and hoping he gets to keep putting it off, is that he's awfully sure his main Christmas present is a snow blower. And no, he hasn't peeked.)

So, he was enjoying his snow day immensely. He'd gotten a solid five thousand words in on the next Deep Six novel and was taking a break, gaming away, happily smiting evil right and left, (he's playing a paladin, so he's literally smiting) while Abby napped.

Then the power went out. One second he had his hand out, holy might coalescing, ready to utterly destroy the vampire before him, the next he was in a dim room staring at a blank screen.

Thank all that's good and holy, they have natural gas heat, hot water, and range, so they can keep warm, shower, and cook without having to use any power.

Though, as he notices the sudden lack of any sounds in his house, like for example, the sound of the blower on the heat, he realizes that the thermostat, which tells the heater to turn on, requires electricity.

This was when the idea of getting a generator started seeming like a really good plan.

He headed over to the table his phone lives on, and picked it up to check the weather, and ran headlong into the issue of no one's wifi was working.

It still worked as a phone, though.

"Hey, Tony."

"What's up, McGee?"

"Power's out. How long is the blizzard supposed to last?"

"Let me check."

A few seconds of silence passes. Then he heard Tony tell Ziva what was up, followed by the sounds of the TV clicking on.

"Supposed to stop snowing around midnight."

"How much of DC is without power?"

"Damn it!" The sound of the TV in the background cut off, and he heard Ziva's voice sounding annoyed about something. "About three quarters, and us now, too."

"So, it's not coming back anytime soon?"

"Don't think so."

"Okay. I've got to see if I can rig my thermostat to run on batteries."

"Good luck on that."

"Thanks. If I'm really lucky it won't cost an arm and a leg to make it work on the house current again when I'm done."

"You've got a fireplace, right?"

"Yeah. And three of those compressed wood logs that burn for three hours and look pretty and do absolutely nothing to keep you warm. How about you guys?"

"Gas fireplace. It's not great, but we won't freeze."

"Good. Okay, got to get working while I've still got some light. The only thing less fun than trying to do this with no power is doing it in the dark."

It really wasn't that difficult. Wire clippers, a nine volt battery, some duct tape, and a flash light held between his teeth (Tim never noticed before that even in the middle of a sunny day the hallway the thermostat is on gets no light, what with the whole being located smack dab in the middle of the house thing. During a blizzard being able to see what he was doing without extra light was hopeless.) got the job done. It was ugly as sin, but the heat kicked back on, and that's what mattered.

Meanwhile a thermostat that had a back-up battery went onto his to get list.

Fortunately, due to his honeymoon prep, they've got a ton of little LED candles. So he set them up around the house, checked on Abby, still asleep, checked the stove, beef stew was still stewing along, noticed that the oven needed power to turn on and regulate the temperature, so their plan for biscuits to go with the stew probably wasn't going to happen.

Then he headed outside with a bucket, filled it with snow, and packed it into the empty spaces in their fridge and freezer.

He figured that was about all he could do, so back to the typewriter he went to work on Deep Six some more.

About an hour into that, as Tibbs, MacGregor, and Tommy were alone in the high desert at night, forced by darkness to stop chasing down a suspect, and for the moment, camping, one more thought occurred to him.

Back to the phone he went.

"Hey, Jethro."

"Tim?"

"Yeah. If I wanted to make biscuits without an oven, how would I do it?"

"Power out?"

"Yep. I've got a functional stove and a fireplace. Beef stew's cooking just fine. I remembered Lonesome Dove begins with Gus making sourdough biscuits over a fire, and I figured if anyone I knew knew how to do that, it'd be you."

"Do you have a dutch oven?"

"Maybe. What is it?"

"Big, thick pot with a tight lid you could put on the coals."

"Sounds like what we make the jambalaya in."

"Probably. Stick the biscuit dough in there. Put it on low coals. Stick more coals on the lid. Let it sit. When they smell done, they probably are."

"Think I can do that on the stove?"

"Do you have a cast iron frying pan?"

"Yeah. Luca made sure we had one."

"Put it on the burner, turn the heat low, make sure it's good and hot, then put the dough in, stick the lid on another burner until it's good and hot too, put the lid on the fry pan, it'll probably work."

"Thanks. You have power?"

"Only if I feel like turning the generator on. Don't need it for sitting in front of the fireplace reading."

"Okay, stay warm. We'll see you tomorrow if we can."

He assumed Gibbs nodded at him, then the line disconnected.

* * *

Abby woke up feeling really good. She was warm, comfortable, and for once, well-rested. She doesn't remember the last time she woke up and didn't want to immediately go back to sleep. Obviously it used to happen, but it's been a while.

Granted, warm, comfortable and well-rested with a warm, and better yet, hard, Tim cuddled up next to her would have been even better, but it's the middle of the day, so he's off…

Which was when it occurred to her that she couldn't hear anything. Usually Tim amusing himself has a soundtrack: game noises, music and battle sounds, or writing, which goes with loud Jazz. Even reading Tim isn't silent; there's always some music to go with Tim having a good time.

She opened her eyes and saw that their room was glowing with ten or so of the LED candles. For a second she was wondering if this was some sort of romantic Christmas treat when she checked the clock to see how late it was and realized they didn't have any power.

And silent Tim suddenly made a whole lot more sense. If he didn't have a good idea of when they'd get power back, he wasn't going to burn through the charges on his devices just for something to listen to.

She headed to the window to try and get a better handle on how late it was, but that didn't help. It was dark enough outside that she couldn't tell if it was late afternoon and the storm was blocking the sun, or if it was already night.

She never realized how much artificial light their neighborhood uses. But now, staring out the window at softly edged dark, she could almost believe they're the only two people on earth.

Kind of cool, really.

She'd been wearing a comfy t-shirt and flannel pants for napping, but decided candle lit dinner for two during a blizzard on Christmas Eve deserved something a little snazzier than that.

Abby grabbed a few of the candles, got them all settled on her dresser, and went looking for the white and cream peignoir. That under her black kimono would do the job nicely. She brushed her hair up into a high ponytail, and decided to head down and see what else was going on.

Halfway down the stairs, she heard the rattling sound of Tim typing at full speed.

All the way down, she noticed that he put the little candles all over the house, but there was no fire in the fireplace. So an idea began to form.

The good thing about writing Tim, well, sometimes, occasionally it's annoying, but right now it's working out well for her… Anyway, the good thing about writing Tim is that when he hits his stride you could pretty much run a gang of naked Hells Angels through the room he's writing in, and he won't notice.

When he's in his story, he's _in _it, and usually pretty happy to be there. (And like how Abby gets grumpy when she gets pulled out of nap these days, Tim pulled out if his writing is awfully grumpy, too. Yeah, he'll deign to pay attention to you if you demand it, but you're much more likely to get the sarcastic version of him.)

So, she doesn't head into his office. Judging by the speed he's typing, he's well into the story.

Instead she headed back upstairs, grabbed their pillows, and the comforter off their bed, and took them back down to make a little snug nest on the floor in front of the fireplace. Off to the linen closet next, more blankets, comforters, and pillows.

By the time she was done, they had a very comfortable little space for dinner, sex, and post-sex snoozing.

She rearranged some of the candles, sticking more of them in the living room, on the mantle, making sure it'd be fairly light in there, and then went to go find some of the logs for the fireplace.

* * *

Tim hit a lull in his writing, and came out of the story with a jerk. The biscuits!

He didn't smell anything burning, but he also had no idea how long he'd been sitting there, working on a scene where McGregor, Tibbs, Tommy, and Liza were defusing a bomb; he has no idea where it'll go in the next story, or even if it'll go in the next story. He's got a box full of scenes that haven't made it into stories, yet. But he's thinking this might be the climax to the current story. It'll all jell once he's got a bad guy in mind.

He jumped up, sprinted toward the kitchen, and was very pleased to notice that he still didn't smell anything burning.

Checking the biscuits showed him the edges closest to the pan seemed to be nicely brown. The tops were still pretty white. And poking them a little made him think they weren't done yet. He debated trying to flip them over, and decided that probably wasn't a great idea.

So he put the lid back on the burner, heated it up again, turned the heat almost off on the biscuits while the lid heated, and hoped that would take care of the whole getting them cooked all the way through before the bottom burns issue.

"Why are you cooking the lid?"

He turned toward her, and saw Abby leaning against the archway between the kitchen and dining room, kimono loosely belted over the white nighty, watching him with a smile on her face.

"Would you believe that Gibbs told me to?"

"Yes." She closed on him, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

He kissed her, long and gentle. "Hi. Have a good nap?"

"Yeah, woke up feeling rested."

"Been a long time since that happened."

"Yeah. So…"

"Even distribution of heat. Trying to get the tops of the biscuits cooked before the bottoms are burned."

"Okay. And heating the lid means you get heat from both sides."

"Yeah. Just remember, you need a hot pad if you're going to touch any of this."

"I'll keep that in mind. When did the power go out?"

"Two hours ago? Three? If I had my watch on, I'd know, but I don't."

"Any idea on how long until dinner's ready?"

"No. Are you hungry?"

"These days, always. But I'm mostly asking so I can make sure the log's burning bright and steady by the time we sit down to eat."

He rose one eyebrow, and she pulled him through the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the living room, when he saw the nest she had made, he grinned.

"It takes about ten minutes to get them really burning, so…"

"So, light it up. We'll eat in ten minutes, and if the biscuits aren't ready… They'll be good for breakfast."

* * *

Ten minutes later, the log was blazing away, instrumental Christmas music was playing (Abby's computer had been completely charged, so she was willing to burn some power in order to have music.) and she was laying on her side, propped up on one arm, kimono loosely draped over her, gaping a bit at the chest and hip, so the white and cream negligee under it was visible.

"Hey, you rea…" The question died on Tim's lips as he stood in the archway between the living room and dining room, staring at her.

Abby sent him a hot, sexy look, slowly slipping her top leg up the bottom one, shifting so the slit in the peignoir fell open, silk slithering over her leg, leaving them bare, and then grinned. "Tim?"

"Yeah?"

"Dinner?"

He tore his eyes away from her legs and said, "Oh, yeah, dinner, right!" scurrying back into the kitchen.

A minute later he was back, a tray with two bowls, filled with savory, steaming stew, rich with red wine, rosemary, and garlic, a plate piled high with golden biscuits, and two mugs of cider, in his hands.

"They look great."

He smiled. "Let's hope they taste that way."

It was sheer dumb luck he actually had the recipe on his phone. Normally he'd have just googled it before making the stuff, but he needed it to get the ingredients, so he actually saved it, and could get to it without wifi. Still, he was, well, fuzzy, on what exactly was involved in cutting butter and shortening into flour by hand, so… yeah… he's hoping they taste good.

The stew was fabulous. They'd gotten it, and a bunch of other recipes from Luca, as a wedding present. The biscuits were… well, given the challenges involved in making them, pretty good, but yeah, they've both had better.

And sharing a meal, warm and comfortable, lit gold by fire and candle light, soft touches and hot looks interspersed between playful words and savory food while the storm raged outside. That was excellent.

* * *

"All done?"

Abby licked the back of her spoon, getting the last drop of the stew. "Yeah."

"Dessert?"

"Do we have anything?"

"Ice cream, frozen blueberries, everything you need to make cookies, but no actual cookies, and no oven to make cookies with."

"And let me guess, you aren't going to let me eat raw cookie dough?"

"I'd really prefer you didn't. Though I suppose I could make it without the eggs…" He looked like he might have been seriously thinking about it, and right now she wants him seriously thinking about her, not about cookies.

"Later." Nothing on that list was making her think that she had to have food right this second. Tim in jeans, a button down, sleeves rolled-up, top two buttons undone, and bare feet, on the other hand, that was definitely sparking some cravings. Her eyes, and fingers, tracing down his body got that idea across.

"Okay, let me get this cleared away."

Judging by how fast he was back, cleared away translated into put into the sink to soak, as opposed to actually washed up and put back.

* * *

He lay down next to her and she scooted a little closer, wrapping her leg over his hip, pulling lightly on the top button on his shirt as he kissed her.

His hand found her shoulder, easing it's way under the kimono, shifting it aside so he can kiss her skin.

He tugged at it again, not having any luck getting it off.

Abby, gently pushed him onto his back. She straddled his hips, keeping her body high, only her calves touching his hips and thighs, and he took the end of the tie to her kimono in hand.

"Pretty bow."

"Always put a nice bow on a present." She grinned at him as he tugged on the tie, and tugged again to pull the kimono off, seeing it fall to a black silk puddle over his hips and her legs.

"Are you my Christmas present?"

"Always. But maybe it's just that I like being unwrapped."

He twisted his hand a few times, snaking the kimono up around it, and then tossed it aside. Tim placed both of his hands on her calves, just below the hem of the peignoir. "I was always very good at unwrapping presents." He slid his hands up her legs and took the lace edging in hand. "Of course there are a lot of ways to unwrap presents. There's the quick, impatient, rip all the paper off as fast as you can." He gave her a wicked look, watched her eyes go wide, he can see she does not want this ripped off of her, and gave the lace a quick tug, hard enough to get the idea across, not hard enough to rip. "But I always thought that lacked finesse."

He let go of the lace, and traced his hands, under the silk, all the way up to her hips, stroking over her legs, rubbing the backs of his knuckles gently over her thighs, and then quickly undoing the button and fly of his jeans. "And of course, some people prefer lifting a corner of the paper, so they can just peek." He took his dick out and lightly rubbed it against her pussy, stroking over her mound, circling her clit with it, enjoying the look of pleasure on her face, and the flush slowly spreading across her chest. Then he tucked himself back in (a lot more difficult than getting out of his boxers in the first place). "Then they retape the paper. But I never thought that was very satisfying."

Her eyes closed, and she swallowed hard, a pained look on her face. His hands returned to her calves, skin on skin, and he traced them up her sides, lace and silk slipping up her skin with them. "And then there's carefully, slowly, taking the paper off. Teasing yourself a little with the reveal." She raised her arms over her head, as he sat up, pulling the peignoir off, tossing it behind them. "That's the one I always liked best." He kissed her lips, her throat, her shoulder, propping himself with his hands flat on the floor behind him, and began to nuzzle and suck her nipples.

"I always preferred to rip the paper off as fast as possible," Abby said as she made short work of the buttons on his shirt. "Might not involve a lot of finesse." She pushed his shirt down his arms, and settled in close on his lap, rubbing her breasts against his chest. "But sometimes there's something to be said for fast."

He grinned at the feel of her naked skin on his. "Indeed."

She scooted back on his legs, getting a good grip on his jeans, and he lifted himself up so she could pull them off quickly.

Abby looked him over, eyes tracing him from toes to forehead, a wide, lusty smile on her face. "But really, when it came down to it, I never much cared about the wrapping one way or another. I wanted what was under it."

He pulled her close to him, sitting on his lap, chest to chest, lips to lips.

"And what do you want the present to do?" he asked, gently pulling her bottom lip with his teeth.

She rolled him on top of her, and he braced himself on his elbows and knees. "You sure?"

She knows that's him worried about thrusting too deep. "Yeah. Just don't hike my leg over your shoulder, and we'll be fine. Besides, right now your chest rubbing against my breasts feels fantastic, and we won't be able to do it like this for all that much longer, so yeah, I'm sure."

He rocked into her, sighing at her body around his, chest skimming over hers, and she moaned at the feel of his skin sliding over hers.

"Good?" he asked with a kiss.

"So good." Her hands settled on his ass, pulling him forward.

He thrust again, getting his whole body into it, rubbing all of himself against her.

"Yeah, Tim, just like that."

He cupped her face in his hands, kissing her soft and sweet while they rocked against each other. Eventually her hands found his, pressed them flat to the floor, her fingers twinging with his. And while this is a position they often start in, it's rarely one they finish in. Being able to kiss her and look her in the eye while her body went tight on his, let alone while feeling her fingers clench between his, was a real treat. Spilling over the edge with her, watching her eyes lose focus as his world went blurry around the edges was another. And falling asleep as the embers died out in the fireplace, wrapped in each other and soft, fluffy comforters was the icing on the cake.

Though, waking up the next morning to functional electricity and the sound of a snow plow clearing the two and half feet of snow off their street was pretty nice, too.


	134. Christmas 2014

"Penny?"

His grandmother swept him into a warm hug seconds after she got into Gibbs' house, Ducky at her side.

"What are you doing here?"

"I knew I was going to be in DC for the holidays, and Ducky thought this would be a pleasant surprise."

"Ducky?" Okay, yeah, they're friends, but Ducky's never brought a "friend" to their annual Christmas party before. Granted Penny's in town, and she is family…

Ducky smiled up at Tim and took Penny's coat from her to hang up on the hooks at the door. "Yes, I'm between campuses right now, he's been kind enough to let me stay with him this week. After the third I've got a spot as a guest lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania for their next semester."

Or they're not just friends, and his ability to pretend they're just friends has just been shot to hell and gone so…

"Uh huh." Tim's giving Ducky a look best described as _just because you're almost eighty doesn't mean I won't kick your ass if you hurt my grandma._ Ducky laid a gentle hand on his arm and nodded.

"Abby!" Penny wrapped her in an enthusiastic hug, then pulled back, hands still on Abby's arms, and spent a moment really looking at her. A slow smile spread across her face. She looked at Abby, looked at Tim, and quirked an eyebrow.

Tim quickly glanced at Abby, saw her minuscule nod of affirmation and quietly said to Penny, wrapping his arm around her, kissing her cheek, "Yes, in July. Ducky's probably got a copy of the sonogram picture on him."

"You don't?"

"Of course I do, but we haven't told everyone yet, and if I whip one out, it's pretty obvious. Ducky does it and everyone'll assume it's Sammy." He pulled back from Penny and took Abby's hand.

"Oh." The fact that Penny knows who Sammy is makes him think her relationship with Ducky is probably quite a bit further along than he suspected. The fact that she didn't know about their baby reminds him that Ducky is an excellent keeper of secrets.

"How long are you in town?"

"Until the second."

"Unless we catch a case, Shabbat is at Ziva and Tony's tomorrow, I bet they'd be happy to add an extra chair to the table."

Tony came over, kissed Penny on the cheek, and said, "She's already been invited."

"You knew she was here?"

"Of course, hence the invite. When it looked like this party might be snowed out we made plans to shift this Christmas surprise to our place for tomorrow." He nodded toward Gibbs' living room. "My dad and L.J. are in there somewhere, I'm sure they'd like to say hi."

"I'll find them in a sec." She hugged Tim one more time, kissed his cheek, and said, "You're looking really good, Tim. Being married agrees with you."

"Yeah, it does."

* * *

Tim has always been vaguely aware of the fact that for a lot of people, the real kick of Christmas is having small children to give presents to.

And while it's true that Amira, Emily (who was with her mother this year), Kayla, and Jared filled some of that need, they're all sort of old for it.

But this year, it became absurdly clear that the extended Gibbs clan was a group of people who were craving grandbabies, and suddenly there was a ten-month-old baby girl with big hazel eyes, curly brown hair, and a wide drooly grin, just waiting to be doted on.

Molly Palmer, of course, won't remember this Christmas. But everyone else noticed that Ducky especially, but Gibbs and Senior as well, went a bit bonkers on the Christmas presents. And the fact that LJ and Jackson also showed up with presents for a baby girl, might suggest that there's a pretty strong hankering for great-grandbabies as well.

So, Molly sat, adults cooing over her, basking in their attention, laughing baby laughs, and grinning a six toothed grin, as Breena and Jimmy opened most of the presents, and she played with the boxes, chewed on the wrapping paper, snuggled the stuffed corgis (presents from Ducky), and had as much of an absolute blast as a ten-month-old can.

* * *

Senior was holding Molly with one arm and had the other one wrapped around Ziva. He stared right at Tony and said, "This! This is what it's all about." He kissed both of the girls. "Wife, children, family! And you aren't getting any younger. Fifty's just around the corner, Junior, and if you don't want people mistaking you for your kid's grandfather…"

Tony rolled his eyes and mumbled something along the lines of, "Yeah, Dad." As Senior continued on about wanting grandbabies and how a pregnant woman is the most beautiful thing on earth—flirting very heavily with Breena as he did it, and eyeballing Abby in a way that strongly suggested that he'd noticed her breast size was larger, and he knew exactly why that had happened—and how if Ziva was pregnant come wedding time she'd be so beautiful people would go blind by staring directly at her.

Eventually he wound down on that and then his gaze drifted over to Tim and Abby, and he said, grin on his face, "How about you two, any plans in this direction?"

Abby had been standing in front of Tim, leaning against his chest. She turned to toward him, the expression on her face clearly signaling _Now?_ They'd been talking about how to announce it, and so far the mass email/Facebook update seemed awfully impersonal, but would spread the news really fast. She was eleven weeks along, so trimester two was right around the corner, and a better opening wasn't likely to happen anytime soon.

Tim kissed her shoulder, then said, "Yeah, we do." He raised his voice, "Hey!" That got the attention of the crowd. "All yours, Abby…"

She twined her fingers in his, seeing everyone watching them. "We're having a baby in July!"

Granted, this wasn't news to a lot of the crowd at Gibbs' Christmas party, and for that matter, it wasn't precisely news to a bunch of the people who weren't supposed to know about it, either. (Vance is looking remarkably unshocked, for example.) But there were still lots of hugs and congratulations along with the traditional questions: are you going to find out if it's a boy or girl (yes), what are you hoping for (girl), name ideas (yes, but they kept that under wraps and left it with the somewhat vague 'family name'), and a decent amount of commentary about how this place was going to be hip deep in babies next year.

* * *

For once Fornell wasn't scowling at him.

Now, maybe part of that was that Emily was with her mother this Christmas, which meant Fornell wasn't trying to protect his now fourteen-year-old daughter from the idea that romance, men, and babies were a whole lot fun. (Fornell was firmly convinced that a career as a nun was a really good choice for Emily. Those ladies get a great education, go on to do important things, usually actively making the world a better place, and stay way the hell away from men. Both Emily and Diane laughed in his face when he said that to them.)

Of course, it could be that the reason he wasn't scowling was hanging on his arm, sharing a cup of eggnog with him, and laughing with Gibbs about something.

Wendy Eccles was warm, pleasant, fun to be around, and for the life of him Tim couldn't understand what she saw in Fornell.

But whatever it was, he appeared to be responding well to, because Fornell's been smiling all day, and actually congratulated him about the baby.

Still, the idea of Fornell with a girlfriend, let alone one who wasn't some version of acid-tongued Diane, was just a whole lot for Tim to wrap his mind around. And the idea of Fornell flirting, which he thought was what's going on as the two of them share the cup of eggnog, let alone being affectionate, (Yes, that was Fornell's hand resting gently on Wendy's hip.) really blew Tim's mind.

* * *

Amira was asking Breena and Abby, "Is it weird?"

"Weird?" Breena replied.

Amira, now ten, and starting to look like she might share Mike's long, lean build, stared at Breena's tummy. "Having a person inside you? All squirmy and stuff."

Abby shrugged. "She's about the size of a golf ball. The docs say she moves around all the time, but I can't feel it yet. So mostly, for me, I'm just really tired all the time."

"I am so glad to be past that. More glad to be done throwing up." Breena patted her tummy. "Sammy's pretty quiet. Molly felt like she was training to be a gymnast in there, but Sammy's just chilling out. Really, it doesn't get weird until the end, when you can see them moving around. That's kind of weird. Like, you're on the sofa, and then your stomach suddenly bulges and shifts. That's almost creepy."

Jimmy kissed Breena's neck, handing her a cup of punch. "Not creepy at all. You get to feel her scooting all over the place, but if you're the dad half of it, it's not really real until you can see that little elbow or whatever poking out. And toward the end, you can sort of play little games with them, tap on the stomach and see her kick back. That was so cool."

Amira just stared at Jimmy, eyes wide. "That's weird."

Abby put her arm around Jimmy. "Yeah, but we love him anyway."

"So, how far along are you?" Wendy had drifted over and asked Breena.

"Nineteen weeks."

"Wow! You look amazing! I would have guessed closer to sixteen weeks. I know with my second boy about ten minutes after the pregnancy test turned positive I was in maternity jeans."

Breena half-smiled. About ten minutes after the test had turned positive she had gained five pounds. Two months later they and five of their buddies were gone. "I had morning sickness so bad I was throwing up twice a day even on the anti-nausea drugs. I've only been feeling good for the last month."

Wendy winced, and Amira looked like she was seriously reconsidering ever having children. "I'm so sorry. I remember being sick like that. Not fun at all."

"Yeah. Only upside is that I look great. Losing ten pounds over the course of the first trimester'll do that. So, how old are your kids?"

"Trevor's twenty-six, John is twenty-four, and Dave is twenty-two. We had them over at my place last night."

"Any grandbabies?"

"John has a little girl."

The girls continued to chat about the soon to be babies McGee and Palmer, and got to know Wendy Eccles a bit better.

* * *

"You got it done?" Fornell asked as Gibbs led him into the basement.

Gibbs flashed Fornell his _of course I have it done, I wouldn't have brought you down here if I didn't_ look.

"Good."

Gibbs handed him the intricately carved rosewood jewelry box. Three months ago Tobias had asked him if he could make one for him. It was small, delicate, a rose carved into the top, and inside there was a space for the ring that was currently sitting in Tobias' sock drawer, waiting to be put into a box worth giving to a woman you want to marry. "When you going to ask?"

"New Year's."

Gibbs smiled at his friend. "I like this one."

"You liked the last one, too."

Gibbs smirked. "I think you should marry this one."

"Me too." Fornell grinned. "Let's get back up there before they notice we're missing."

* * *

"I've got to ask, McGee, did you get taller?" Senior asked.

"It's the boots; he always wears those things with the skirt, Dad." Tony handed his father another cup of Jackson's eggnog.

"No, it's not the boots," Penny added. "By the way, I really like the kilt, Tim."

"Thanks, Penny."

"It's always good to see your playful side come out, and even better to see a man who doesn't feel pressured to conform to patriarchal societal norms of the gender binary."

"Uh… thanks. And no, I'm not taller. Just have better posture. Started doing some yoga with Abby, and I've been standing straighter because of it."

"Yoga!" Penny's grinning about this, and he's really hoping she's not about to start asking about Tantra, while both Senior and Junior DiNozzo look really surprised by that.

"Yeah. It's… um… a lot harder than it looks, but it's good exercise."

"Exercise?" Tony didn't buy it. "No, no, no. Exercise involves moving around, fast, heart pumping, sweat pouring down your body. Exercise is not twisting yourself into a pretzel and breathing deeply."

"I didn't say it was a sport."

"That's because you aren't totally insane."

Palmer headed by, plate of goodies for Breena in hand, and stopped. "What's not a sport?"

"Yoga." Senior said.

"Duh."

"It's also not exercise."

"Really, Tony?" Jimmy was suddenly looking very cocky.

"Really. Meditation, sure. Stretching, yep. Exercise, nope. You aren't sweating; it isn't exercise."

"Uh huh. Here, hold this." He handed the plate to Penny and did something. All Tim knows is that it was graceful, elegant, slow, and then Jimmy was doing a handstand, feet in the air, supporting himself on his forearms, and from there he got into a one-handed handstand, and then, once again, slowly, gracefully got himself back out of it, then hopped back up, took the plate from Penny, and said to Tony. "If you aren't sweating, you're doing it wrong. Gotta give this to Breena."

Tony and Senior just stared at the place where Jimmy had been. Penny blinked slowly, then said to Tim, "Can you do that?"

He shook his head, eyes wide. "Nope, and even if I could, I certainly wouldn't in a kilt."

That got the other three laughing.

* * *

Things were starting to wind down, getting quieter. Because of the snow most of the crew had decided that heading home earlier than usual was a good plan. Tim was helping to wrap up some of the food when he looked over and saw something that made him smile. He got a quick picture of it, and then went to find Gibbs.

"Hey, you want a copy of this?"

He showed Gibbs the shot of Jackson on the easy chair, Molly sleeping on him, sucking her thumb, snuggling one of the stuffed corgis, as he patted her back.

Gibbs nodded.


	135. He's A Fucking Weasle

It's not a secret that Tim is jealous of Abby's past lovers and that she feels similarly towards his. During the years they didn't date, they didn't strenuously object about each other's "friends," and they both genuinely wished the other happiness, but neither of them was particularly thrilled about the other dating someone other than themselves.

Sort of a if-I-don't-get-to- have-you-no-one-else-does-either vibe.

Now, for Abby, this is not a big deal. Sure, Tim has ex-girlfriends, but not a ton of them, and he tended to date outside of their social/work set. So, it's possible that they might run into one of his exes, but it's unlikely.

For Tim, this is a somewhat thornier problem. Abby has probably four exes to every one of his, and she has dated people they work with, at least on occasion.

And she's remained friends with a decent number of the guys she dated.

So, running into one of her exes was bound to happen sooner or later.

At least, he thinks the guy standing in Abby's lab, in a lab coat and vaguely hipsterish outfit is one of the exes.

He's watching her the way an ex would. Eyes hungry and staring, devouring her curves under her lab coat, lingering on her lips, undressing her with his eyes.

Tim's been in the lab for, oh, nine seconds, and he already loathes the guy in front of him.

Abby looks over at him, grins, and says, "Tim, this is Greg Sanders. Greg, Tim McGee. We met at a forensics conference back in..."

"'01." Greg smiles at him and offers his hand. Tim smiles back limply, while shaking.

"So, which lab are you out of?" Tim asks.

"None anymore, I'm a CSI out of Vegas now. I started in their lab, but got into field work a few years later." Tim feels himself drifting closer and closer to Abby with each word Sanders says. By the time Greg's done with the sentence, he's holding her hand.

"So what brings you so far from home?" _Get the hell out of my wife's lab and go back to your own!_

"My publisher has me giving a seminar on true crime writing, and since I was in town, I thought I'd look Abby up."

"Really. You write? Who are you with?"

"Harper Collins." Tim nods, impressed against his will. They tend to make good books.

"True crime?"

"Yeah, I write about Vegas during the mob days. It's a hobby."

Great, he's standing there, leering at Abby, eye fucking her, or trying at least. She's not returning those looks. And he's a writer. And he's a cop. And he's about the same age Tim is, maybe a tad younger. Certainly cooler. Tan. More handsome. In slightly better shape. Tim wraps an arm over her shoulders, eye narrowing, and growls, very, very softly. But Abby notices and turns to him.

She does not look particularly pleased by him at this moment. "Anything you need, McGee?"

"No, Mrs. McGee. Just wanted to tell you the OB called, our appointment got moved from ten to ten-thirty."

This tells Abby that Tim's on the verge of a melt-down of some sort, because that appointment had been almost a month ago, and though he may call her Mrs. McGee on occasion, (like when they're having sex) he's never done it like that before.

Greg looks up at her and smiles. "You're pregnant?"

"Yes, we're having a baby in July," Tim answers.

That couldn't have backfired worse on him if he had tried. Greg grins at them and pulls Abby into a tight hug, and since Tim already had his arm around her, that means he more or less got hugged by Greg, too. Then Greg shook Tim's hand again-which Tim responds to by not breaking his hand, though he wants to-and says, "This is awesome! Can I take you out to dinner?"

"No," Tim says it, voice flat.

"But I'm free for lunch tomorrow," Abby quickly replies. "How about noon?"

"That sounds great!" Apparently Greg finally got the clue that he didn't need to be in the lab anymore, and left.

Before he's all the way out of the door, Tim had pulled Abby even closer to him and was kissing the daylights out of her. She lets him, for a minute, and then puts her hands on his arms and pushes him back.

"Could you have been more rude?"

"Yes." Tim's nodding emphatically. "And I would have enjoyed it!"

She rolls her eyes and looks exasperated. "Okay, what is going on?"

"Insane jealousy. I mean, Palmer told me about it, but it really is insane. Look, I trust you. I absolutely know that nothing is ever going to happen with that Sanders guy. But the way he was looking at you was just... And I was watching it... And just... Insane."

"Okay, so you know what you did was completely not cool."

"Yes."

"Are you going to apologize to him?"

Tim shrugs. "I'd really prefer not to. I'm not in any way bothered about being rude to him. He deserved it."

"Do you trust me?"

He kisses her again. "Utterly. Nothing is going to happen. He was all but fucking you with his eyes, and you didn't even blink at him. You and me, we're good. He's a fucking weasel."

She's giving him a look somewhere between amused and annoyed. "So, it's not about trust."

"No." He's shaking his head. "Trust you absolutely. It's more about wanting to wipe that smirk off his face, preferably with a lot of force and a good deal of pain, and make sure it's tattooed into his brain that you are MINE."

"Pissing contest?"

"Yes." Tim's nodding emphatically at this, too.

"Eye fucking?" If you were to ask Abby what that encounter looked like, she would have told you it was two friendly colleagues chatting with each other. Sure Greg's attracted to her. What guy isn't? Especially now, pregnancy boobs are insane. But there was absolutely nothing he was doing that was out of line.

Tim, on the other hand, is glaring at the memory of Sanders watching Abby. "He was staring at your breasts, like he really wanted to see them, again, and your lips, like he knew exactly how delicious you are and what you can do with them."

Her eyebrows shoot up as he says that. "You think we've—"

"I know how I used to look at you, and that looked awfully similar to me."

"Huh." Okay, yeah, of course she and Greg slept together, but she didn't see any of that in how he was looking at her. But if Tim noticed it...

"Have you two...?" he asks, looking like he can't believe he let those words come out.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Only if the answer's no."

She looks him straight in the eye. "No. We've never slept together."

He nods, takes a deep breath, and kisses her quickly. When he pulls back he says, "Eventually, when I'm sane again, I might ask again, and that time, tell me the truth?" It's not that he's calling her a liar, not exactly. It's that he knows that she knows that right now any other answer isn't a kindness. And the little sane voice in the back of his head knows that asking her that, and then telling her that he couldn't handle the answer really wasn't fair.

"Sure."

He kisses her again. This time softer, and longer, and more of just touching her to touch her, less about marking her as his. And this time she lets him until he finishes.

"Can I go to lunch with him without you having a fit?"

"Yeah. As long as I'm not watching him eyeball you, I'll be fine. He knows we're married, right?"

"Well, if he didn't before, he does now. That Mrs. McGee thing wasn't subtle. The fact that I introduced you as Tim McGee when that's the same name on my ID badge, and the name on my Facebook profile, you know, the way he let me know he was going to be in town, might have also tipped him off. Or, since he's a cop, he could have noticed the matching wedding rings, and if he's really sharp, he could have possibly noticed that this," and she touched the lip print on her throat, "matches your lips."

"Okay."

* * *

A/N: Yes, that is Greg Sanders from CSI, and yes, he's been chosen intentionally for this role. (More on that later.) Happy Friday everyone!


	136. Help!

He went to Gibbs' place after dinner that night.

For once, Gibbs wasn't in the basement. He was in his dining room, with Fornell, settling in for dinner.

"Tim?" He looked up, a bit surprised to see Tim in his living room.

"I need help, Jethro."

"He calls you Jethro now?" Fornell appeared deeply amused by that.

Gibbs shrugged a little, while Tim said, "I do for calls like this."

Taking a seat at the table, and shaking his head at the pro-offered manicotti, Tim explained what happened that afternoon and wrapped up with, "Look, I don't want to be the jerk who has a fit each time his wife talks to someone else. Help!"

Fornell laughed, bite of his dinner forgotten on his fork. "You want help from him? He beat the ever living shit out of me after Diane."

Gibbs stared at Fornell long and… honestly Tim's not entirely sure what that look means. Then he quietly said, "You got her pregnant while I was married to her."

Fornell shrugged. "I didn't say I didn't deserve it. Just saying you might not be the best guy to ask about how to hold your temper."

Tim's eyes went wide and he stared at both of them for a very long minute. Well, _that_ was the answer to what happened with the three of them. Abby was going to be so happy to get that information. _Abby._ That got him back to his own problem. "Look, I'm fine with Abby. I can see she's completely not interested in this guy. But I can see that he is. And I don't want to go to jail because I lose it and hit him for looking. Got it?"

"Make him throw the first punch," Gibbs said.

"Huh?" Gibbs can see that was an idea that had literally never occurred to Tim, and without him voicing it, never would occur to Tim.

"If you can't control it, control him. Get him to start the fight. Tony and I'll help if need be. Then you can be the bigger man and not press charges. We've got your six."

"Oh." Gibbs watched Tim think about it for a while. And for a while, he it looked like he really liked it. Then something a bit colder dawned on him. "Abby probably wouldn't like that."

"Ya think, Tim?" Gibbs smiled.

"Yeah."

"Then you'll have to come up with something she'll like."

"I understand woodworking is soothing," Fornell added with a smirk.

Tim rested his head in his hands. "How did you deal with this? You've both had kids. You did the pregnant wife thing. Palmer said it was insane, but..."

"The guy who is dumb enough to hit on the pregnant wife of a twenty-four-year-old Marine while he's with her deserves what's coming to him. Back in '81 and '82, when Shannon was pregnant, there wasn't a cop alive who would have disagreed with that. Hell, back then most cops would have whacked the guy a few times just to make sure he understood how things worked. When I was with Shannon, everyone was properly respectful."

"Antacids and a lot of time at the gym or firing range. Diane thrived on having guys look adoringly at her. And the more pregnant she got, the better she looked, the more attention she wanted. By the time Emily showed up, I was in the best shape of my life."

Gibbs looked at Tim, knowing he spends at least an hour or two a week at the range, but isn't much for the gym, and tries to come up with something useful for Tim. "That yoga stuff you're doing with Abby and Jimmy might be good, or you can murder him in your next book."

Tim hadn't realized that Gibbs knew about the yoga. "I do that with Abby, was just talking with Jimmy, and it's… just not good for this." He was getting better at the stretching and the poses. The calm, mellow mindset, on the other hand, was already horrifically illusive and trying to add seething, insane rage to the mix wasn't going to help. "Writing about it, though..." A really nasty smile spread across Tim's face. "He can be the first red herring, the guy who looks promising but turns up dead in chapter five."

"There you go."

"Might be a lot of red herrings in the next book."

"Write one about a serial killer who frames each victim for the murder before."

Tim nodded, a very disturbing smile on his face.

Gibbs was looking at Tim, hoping that'll do it. But if it didn't... The fact that Tim probably didn't have a lot of experience at feeling like he wanted to hurt someone just for the sake of doing it, let alone handling that feeling, hit Gibbs.

"You need us, we've got you. Me and Tony, anytime, just call."

"Thanks. Okay. I should get home."

Fornell watched him leave, and then asked, "How did he ever become a cop?"

"You know, I don't know that." And Gibbs realized he didn't. He'd never asked why Tim became a cop, let alone a field agent. Probably a good question for the next time they're on a stakeout.

"I know he's good at it, but that's the gentlest kid I've ever seen."

"Yeah. Tim and killer instinct don't exactly go hand in hand."

Fornell stared at Gibbs for a moment. "You actually behave when Shannon was pregnant?"

Gibbs shook his head. "The MP who got called in was one of my buddies. He slapped that idiot upside the head, too. You?"

"After I beat the snot out of the first guy for ogling Diane when she was pregnant, I joined the gym." Fornell remembered that for a moment. "You should have told her you'd had a vasectomy."

"Didn't see a need to. She would have asked why, and I would have had to go into how difficult Kelly's birth was..." Gibbs shook his head. "I would have had to tell her who Kelly was. She knew I didn't want any more kids when we got married. That should have been enough."

"It wasn't. I didn't know she was pregnant when she wrote you."

"You weren't supposed to. I think she thought a baby might have saved our marriage." Gibbs shrugged, and Fornell knew him well enough to know that if he hadn't had that vasectomy, if there had been any chance at all that Emily was his, he would have stayed. And he knew that because Fornell was the guy he called after he got that letter, and the guy who suggested he made sure that his vasectomy still worked before doing anything rash, and Fornell was the guy who heard the excitement in Gibbs' voice when he recognized that it might have healed was a possibility. And Fornell was the guy who wanted to shoot himself in the head after he hung up, knowing he'd just, literally, fucked things up beyond all belief.

"And I was around and convenient."

"Yeah."

Fornell shook his head. "Lord, that woman is a piece of work."

"You got a beautiful daughter out of it, Tobias."

"Yeah, and I don't regret that at all. But you were right, I shouldn't have married her. Not sure how I would have done as a single dad with a newborn, but..."

"Water under a lot of bridges there."

"Yeah."


	137. Get Some Coffee With Me

Palmer showed up at Tim's desk a little after lunch the next day. "Get some coffee with me?"

"Sure."

"I crashed Abby's lunch date."

Tim was giving Palmer a very confused look. He hadn't even told Palmer that was up. And suddenly he got what Gibbs meant by "We've got your six."

"Did Gibbs send you?"

"Yeah. He figured it'd look more natural if I did it than if Tony did."

"Good thinking."

"Okay first of all," and here he gently smacked Tim upside the back of the head. "Sanders is a puppy. And not like a pit bull puppy, which might, eventually with enough time turn out to be an issue, but like, what are they, those tiny, little dogs girls buy to cuddle with?"

"Chihuahuas?"

"No, the ones with the hair they put in bows, that, you know, grow to be maybe eight inches tall." Palmer was gesturing with his hands to get the size of whatever that kind of dog is across.

"Sounds an awful lot like a Chihuahua."

"Chihuahuas have short hair and big ears. The thing I'm thinking of is really fluffy and looks like a dust mop. Some kind of terrier. Anyway, what the hell is wrong with you, man?"

"He was watching Abby, undressing her with his eyes, and just—"

Jimmy just nodded, looking really smug, and put his hand on Tim's shoulder consolingly. "Okay, you're full on pregnant daddy insane. I get that. But seriously, nothing even remotely out of line happened."

"Good. I think they slept together back when they first met."

"You think?"

"I asked; she said no."

Jimmy rolled his eyes and smacked him upside the back of the head again, this time hard enough to sting. He held up two fingers, back of his hand to Tim, and Tim wonders idly if Jimmy knows he's using the British gesture to flip him off. "Two things you never, ever ask, because if you ask you are making her lie to you. One," And his index finger curled down. Tim's feeling awfully sure that at some point Jimmy picked up some rude gestures from Ducky. "Have you had sex with him? Two," and he curled his middle finger down, so possibly this might be another of those moments where Jimmy's lack of mental filter is showing, "was he better/longer? Never, ever ask. How long ago was it?"

"Thirteen-fourteen years ago."

"Then it's fairly safe to say that's not his kid in her belly, and nothing else really matters."

Tim sighed. "Okay, you're right, I'm insane. Great. Now what?"

"Work on coping."

"I'm trying. She went to lunch with him; I did not freak out."

"Good."

"How are you handling it?" Tim asked Jimmy. Senior had been flirting pretty hard with Breena during the Christmas party, but besides Jimmy's eyes narrowing a little and a slight clench to his jaw, nothing happened.

"It's like sex."

Tim stared at Palmer, eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not following you."

"After the first time I wanted to beat the hell out of a guy for being too polite to Breena, and she just stared at me like I was a complete jerk, I figured it out. It's like sex."

The furrow between Tim's eyebrows got deeper. "Still not following."

"Look. You're fooling around, who's gonna get off first?"

"She is."

"Right. Why?"

"Uh..." He was staring at Palmer like this is conversation is twenty million shades of wrong.

"Just go with it, okay?"

"Fine, she gets off first because things pretty much end when I get off."

"Go deeper, Tim. Why is that an issue?"

"Because I want her to have a good time, too."

"Closer." Jimmy was looking expectantly at him.

"I don't want her to think I'm the asshole who gets off and then falls asleep immediately after."

"Exactly." Jimmy beamed at him.

Tim shook his head wondering what on earth could possibly make Jimmy think this made any sort of sense whatsoever. "I still have no idea why you've brought this up."

Jimmy was flashing him the _you can't possibly be this dumb _look, and begins to explain in a very patient sounding voice, "Right, so you're screwing and you want to get off, but she's not done yet, so you don't. You control it. You put what she wants first, so she doesn't think you're a jerk."

Tim nodded; that was right. And he was finally seeing where Jimmy was going with this.

"But sometimes, she wants you to get off first. Sometimes she's doing it for you. And sometimes, she's not there at all, and you can do it however you like. And sometimes she does something and you just lose it, but it's okay because you don't do that a lot."

"True."

"Okay, Timmy, same sort of thing with this. Most of the time you're doing it for her. She's around, so you take your cues from her. She's not annoyed by the guy, so you've got to control it and just let it flow by, let her see you aren't a jerk. Every now and again, he does something that just pisses you off, so you go a little bonkers, but she forgives you because you don't do it too often. If she is annoyed at the guy, you get to be the jerk you want to be, and at least verbally beat the hell out of him. And sometimes, she's not there, so you can do whatever you want." Jimmy smiled at that last one.

"Why are you getting defensive if she isn't there?"

"I'm sorry, that was you, right-I mean, it looked a whole lot like you-telling me about how you almost hit me when I was joking about sleeping with Abby?"

Tim nodded. "Got you. And her being annoyed by the guy, that's the equivalent of when she's doing you for your sake?"

"I think so. Anyway, anger and orgasms are a lot alike. Use whatever technique you use not to get off to keep control of your temper. It'll work."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"Yeah, well," Jimmy had a pretty smug _see I'm not insane_ expression on his face as he said this, "I didn't figure it out at first, either, but then it just sort of clicked."

"Huh." Tim thought about that for a moment. "Doesn't she wonder why you're suddenly not really there?"

"Yeah, but when she asked, I told her, and she seemed to think it was better than me getting pissed off at every guy near her."

Tim nodded at that, then looked at Palmer for a minute and decided what the hell, this was already a weird conversation. "So what do you do?"

Jimmy grinned. "Pick a letter and recite every bone in the body alphabetically from there. Backwards if I really need the distraction."

Tim nodded again. That requires attention and is not even remotely sexy.

"You?"

"Replay whichever level of whatever game I was most recently playing."

Palmer nodded. Then stopped, thinking about that more carefully. "You might want to come up with something other than that to control your temper."

"Good point, beating the hell out of something electronically might not be a good choice."

Tony joined them. "What are you two talking about hiding over here?"

Tim was on the verge of saying, "You really don't want to know" when Palmer, with a big, happy smile beat him to it and said, "Orgasm delay techniques. What do you do?"

Tony stared at them in stupefaction and finally said, "What are you, girls? I leave you alone for five minutes and you talk about this?"

"Sure." Jimmy nodded. "Not that we're girls, but that we're talking about this." Palmer thought about it for a moment. "Tony, girls don't need orgasm delay techniques. It's not anything they do."

Tony took a deep breath and stared at Jimmy like he's some sort of alien. Then he shook his head, sighed, and said, "Movie quotes. If I need the big guns..." and here he paused, looked around, lowered his voice, and said, "Gibbs in a Speedo."

Both Jimmy and Tim looked stunned. Finally Tim said, slowly nodding, "Yeah, that'd do it."

Jimmy stared at Tony, disbelief all over his face. "The idea is to not get off, no go completely soft and end up curled into a ball whimpering."

"Look, if I'm..." and once again he looked around, paused, looked around again, and once again Gibbs was nowhere nearby, "thinking about that, Ziva's got me so hard I could drive nails with it and I'm so close the tingles have all but started."

"Okay, so extreme emergency situations," Palmer said, the look of disbelief not entirely gone, but it eased up.

"Yeah, for when she needs like one minute more and I'm almost insane."

"That makes sense," Tim added.

"So, do I want to know why you two were talking about this?"

Jimmy shrugged, and Tim rolled his eyes, orgasm delay techniques he came up with in a second, but why they might be talking about it was something Jimmy's willing to see if Tim actually wants to share with Tony.

"Jimmy suggested using the same technique to control my temper so I don't beat the hell out of the next guy who eyeballs Abby."

"Oh, right, Gibbs mentioned that. So, it's bad?"

"Tim was getting ready to beat the hell out of a guy, who from everything I can tell is gay, because he was," and Jimmy did the quote hand gesture to go with the next two words, "'checking out' Abby."

Tim turned on Jimmy, voice hot, and pointing as he spoke. "Look, he's not gay, and you were not there! He was undressing her with his eyes, and looking at her lips, imagining the best blow job ever, and I had to stand there and _watch_ him do it."

"Uh huh." Palmer nodded, then looked at Tony _Tim's insane_ clearly on his face. "So gay! On the overreaction scale of one to ten, Tim blew a fifteen."

"Fifteen is when I actually shoot the guy." Tim shook his head. "My wife, pregnant with my kid, I'm allowed to get overprotective."

Jimmy smiled at him. "Told you it was insane."

"Yeah, it is."

Then they both turned to Tony, and smirked.

Tony backed up a little. "Oh no. Do not sit there and smirk at me. I'm not joining your insane, over-protective daddy club anytime soon!"

"Uh huh." _Bullshit_ Jimmy's expression clearly said this time.

"Two years," Tim added.

"We're not even married, yet."

"Please, that's four months off," Jimmy said.

"Didn't stop Abby and I. And your dad is right, people might go blind by looking directly at Ziva made up for her wedding and a few months pregnant."

Jimmy's voice got serious. "Think about it, you wait two years to have a kid, not start on one, but to have a kid, and you're going to be seventy-two when he graduates college. You want to be young enough to do dad stuff with your kid-"

"I needed to start ten years ago, so it's a moot point. There's not a huge difference between seventy-two and seventy-four, and since the youngest I could possibly be is seventy I'm not feeling any need to rush."

"Okay, how about this, you want to be alive to see your kids get married? Want to actually walk your daughter down the aisle, instead of hobble?"

"My dad's eighty and doing fine. Grandad made it to 88. Great-grandfather made it to 90. DiNozzos are hard to kill off."

"If you say so," Jimmy said. "Just keep it in mind."

"Thanks. Anyway, we need to get back to the bullpen. Gibbs and Ziva are due back with the suspect any minute and you know how he gets when he gets back and we don't have something to report the second he walks in."


	138. Going Home

"Hey, you ready to head home?" Tim asked as he headed into Abby's lab.

"Yeah. Just got to shut everything down."

"Okay. Want me to help?"

"Sure."

He headed over to her desk computer and began the shut-down routine. "What are you thinking of for dinner?"

"I really want pizza. Like two hours ago a pizza switch turned on in my head and now I just want it!"

"We'll get pizza. Eat out, or order some, head home, and eat in our jammies in front of the television?"

"Jammies sounds good." Yeah, she can still wear her usual skirts and pants, but those days are numbered, and those numbers have hit single digits, low single digits, just waiting for the boxes to show up at their door, single digits.

First thing that happens when she gets home now is stripping off, and hopping into something with an elastic waistband, and it's even better if it's Tim's.

He got his phone out. "Usual?"

"Yeah."

He punched their usual order in, checked the clock, and told them to deliver it in an hour. "Okay, only an hour more to wait for pizza."

"Good. I've got all my stuff done."

He turned off her monitor. "Got this one." Then he took her coat off of the hook it lived on, and held it open for her.

Five minutes later they were in her car. He was driving. She was messing with the iPad, looking for a good song. Once she found one she said, "So Jimmy ran into us during our lunch date."

"Yeah, he told me that. And smacked me upside the head for being an idiot."

"Uh huh. And did you tell him to crash my lunch date?"

"Nope."

He's looking pretty innocent, because he honestly didn't ask. But there might be some smirk in his face anyway, because she follows up with, "Okay, did you _ask_ him to crash my lunch date?"

"Didn't do that, either. I said absolutely nothing on the subject to Jimmy. In fact, I didn't see or speak to Jimmy about anything between you making that date and him showing up at my desk and saying, 'Get some coffee with me.'"

"So, what, he was just there?"

"No. Gibbs sent him."

"Why would Gibbs do that?"

"He's got my back. And I did tell him about the lunch date." His hot Fornell/Gibbs/Diane gossip more or less caused both of them to forget to talk about the rest of what happened when he was there.

Abby laughed at that, shaking her head a little. "And did Jimmy report back that everything was fine."

"Yes. He tells me that Sanders is gay."

That takes Abby aback. "Greg? No. Greg's not gay." Abby thought about that for a minute. "He's probably bi, or at least experimented in that direction. Not gay."

"Abby, that's not comforting."

"Sorry. Gay. He's really gay. Gayest guy you've ever seen. He's moving in with his partner, Nick Stokes, in the next few weeks and was telling me all about it. They have a June wedding planned."

"That's overkill."

She grinned at him. "What do you want to watch while we eat pizza in our jammies?"

"Supernatural. Season five finale is the next episode and I've been looking forward to it all day."

"Sounds good."


	139. December 31st, 2014

At 11:59:59, as 2014 was shifting into 2015:

The bullpen was silent. For once. It's rarely silent. Technically there's someone at NCIS every single hour of every single day of the year (emergency weather cancellations excepted.)

And then it wasn't. Ralph Simmons has been the night janitor at NCIS for twenty years, and of all the teams at NCIS the four that fill the bullpen are the ones he knows best. Not only have they been there the longest (as a single team unit) they also work later than most of the rest of the NCIS employees. He knows them best because they're the ones he sees most often.

As he emptied Gibb's trash he noticed a few new pictures on the back of his wall. (Holidays almost always mean new pictures, and he always enjoys seeing them.) There are the now familiar ones from McGee and Abby's wedding. (He can't believe they all got dressed up like that.) And two new ones. One's a blurry black and white shrimp-looking thing (but Ralph isn't having a hard time figuring it out, scuttlebutt's had it for months that Abby's pregnant and a few days ago the official email went out.) the other is an older man who looks a lot like Gibbs, similar build, same blue eyes, but probably twenty-five or thirty years older, sitting on what looks like a comfortable arm chair with Palmer's daughter in his lap.

He heads to Ziva's desk. In the trash there are four wedding invitation mock ups. Ones that didn't pass muster, apparently. He looks at them and shakes his head. Yeah, not right for them. Sure they both have that classic elegant thing going, but that doesn't mean anything with lacy little curly cues is a good plan.

She's also added a new shot to her computer, Tony lighting the first candle on the Menorah, just below the one of the two of them dancing at McGee's wedding.

DiNozzo's desk looks just about the same as it always does. Though he does notice there's a men's formal wear catalog open. Apparently someone is looking for suits for his wedding. He looks at it closer and sees _McGee/Palmer?_ written next to one of the suit styles.

McGee's back wall also has the same black and white shrimp up. Just below the skull photo. (Ralph wonders why he's got that. It's been there for years, but it's never made any sense to him. Granted McGee's married to Abby, so maybe he just likes skulls.) And next to his wedding picture. (McGee kissing Abby after the vows.)

He empties out McGee's trash and heads to the next cubicle.

* * *

At 11:59:59 Leon Vance was counting down with his children. He and Jackie had decided they were old enough to stay up for New Year's five years ago.

It still hurt, not having her next to him while they did this, not kissing her a second from now, but it was getting easier to remember how happy this made them, and how much fun it was.

He hugs his kids and hopes this new year will be better, easier than the last.

* * *

At 11:59:59 Jimmy and Breena Palmer were asleep. At six weeks shy of her first birthday Molly Palmer (who is also, thankfully, asleep) does not grasp the concept of sleeping in. She'll be up at five thirty no matter what, so they went to bed at their normal time. In the morning, they'll joke about how once upon a time they greeted the New Year's Dawn by staying up all night, not by waking up early, and how, on that once upon a time, they were naked and sipping champagne, not swathed in flannel and feeding Cheerios and bananas to an almost one year old.

And Jimmy will kiss his wife, remind her that Molly's morning nap is only three hours away, and he's certainly in favor of both of them getting naked then.

She'll kiss him back, jump a little when Sammy gets her with a particularly energetic bout of kicking, and both of them will be thinking that life is pretty sweet, even if there is a certain lack of late-night-naked-champagne-sipping time.

* * *

At 11:59:59 Tim was saying, well gasping really, "Oh, God, Abby, just! Fuck! ABBY!"

At 12:04, she was cuddled into him, saying, "I told you I'd show you fireworks."

He was breathing deep and slow, lazy, satisfied smile on his face. "You did."

"And look, no driving, no cold, no trying to find parking."

"I will never suggest we go out into the cold to see New Year's fireworks again."

* * *

At 11:59:59 Gibbs was sketching out plans for the inside of the Shannon. The hull was built, and though he'd had a general idea of what he was going to do with it when he started it, he has some new ideas now. Like, if, for example, he's hoping to take grandkids sailing at some point, maybe having a few extra berths squeezed into it would be a good plan.

* * *

At 11:59:59 Tony and Ziva were yelling "One!" as showers of glittery confetti, streamers, and balloons cascaded down around them. And before the first of the balloons hit the floor, Tony had his arms wrapped around her, and lips on hers, warm, soft, and playful.

He pulled back a few seconds later. "You know what I was thinking?"

She rubbed up against him. "Going home soon sounds like a good plan?"

He gave her another kiss, a very long, very hot look, and then flicked his tongue against her bottom lip. "Yes. I was thinking something else, too."

"What."

"This is the last New Year's I'll spend with a girlfriend. This time next year, I'll ring in the New Year with my wife."

A wide, pleased smile spread across her face.

* * *

At 11:59:59 Dr. Donald Mallard was having a late supper with Penny Langston PhD.

They were having a somewhat serious conversation about his and possibly their future.

There are certain things that Ducky is quiet aware of, one of them being that he will be eighty in the spring, has already had one heart attack, and that when push comes to shove, Jimmy is doing more and more of the work around Autopsy.

He's been debating having a conversation with Leon about this, and is bouncing the idea off Penny first. He's not ready to retire, not yet. But he can see the point where he won't be up to lugging bodies around, and where his vision won't be good enough to catch the details the way he used to. And it's not nearly as far off as he wishes it was.

When that day comes, he'd like to partially retire. He'd stay on as a forensic psychologist. Continue to help the team by profiling, adding what he can, but hand over running Autopsy to Jimmy. He'll need a new space ("That cubicle next to Tim's?" Penny asked. He nodded; that would work.) so Jimmy wouldn't feel like he was hovering, and so he wouldn't feel like Autopsy was still his.

She nodded at him, thinking that sounded like a solid plan, and asked him, "And if you were partially retired, what would you do with all of your new free time?"

He smiled at her. "I would like to spend it with the people who are precious to me. I know it's certainly late in the game to be thinking about this, but I'd like to work on being a better family man. I have a feeling that in the not wildly distant future there will be a rather large crop of young people who have never heard any of my stories, and I'd like to share them. And that their parents wouldn't mind me taking said young people out for walks in the park or the like to tell them those stories."

In fact, he's been enjoying spending time with Molly Palmer more than he thought he possibly could. He'd never felt any special desire to engage with infants before, but if he doesn't get to see her regularly, he gets grumpy. One of his favorite Sunday afternoon (when they aren't working) pastimes is taking her out for walks. From what he can tell, she seems to approve, as well. And while she doesn't have all that much more to add to the conversation than the bodies in Autopsy do, she is a much more enthusiastic listener. And he has a very deep suspicion that he will also deeply enjoy spending time with Sammy and McSciuto. (To the point where he's been googling three seat strollers so he can take all three out at once.)

"And I was thinking, that if I weren't working all the time," he took her hand in his, "that I'd be able to make dates with you on a significantly more regular basis, and actually attend them, and I was wondering if you'd welcome that."

Penny smiled at him, squeezing his hand in hers.

"And if that worked out well?" she asked with an amused glint in her eye, enjoying the formality of how he's addressing this. Yes, Penny is an old-school second-wave feminist, she burned her bra with the best of them and fought her way through a man's world that didn't know what to do with a brilliant scientist who happened to be female, but she also appreciates Ducky's old-world gentility, knowing that it's based in a deep respect for who she is and who she hopes to be.

"I've been enjoying having you here this last week, quite a bit, and maybe, if things continued to go well, eventually, you'd see fit to share a home with me?"

"Are you asking to court me, Dr. Mallard?" she asked with a playful tone. This is serious, but it's also fun, and she intends to enjoy it.

He smiled at her. "In a manner of speaking. I'd imagine that at this point in our lives, a marriage would only complicate things for both of us. But a dear companion to share the winter of one's life with is something I think I would like very much."

A very warm smile spread over Penny's face. "I think I would, too."

* * *

At 11:59:59 Tobias Fornell was on the back porch of Wendy Eccles' apartment, which had a great view of the fireworks exploding over the Potomac, on his knees, holding an open ring box in front of him, as Wendy grinned at him, saying, "Yes!"


	140. Ziva's Problem

Ziva David had a problem.

Not a huge one or anything, but still, it was something that had to be resolved, and soon.

In only slightly more than four months, on April 5th, 2015, she was getting married.

And she still didn't have a matron of honor.

Tony had picked Tim as his best man, well, before they got engaged. She's not even sure Tony formally asked Tim, or if it was just understood that that was how it was going to go. But she hasn't picked between Abby and Breena. They've never pressured her to decide, never even asked, but it's still there, in the back of Ziva's mind, at least.

Abby and Breena have both been helping with the wedding. They both swung into planning mode at a moment's notice. No matter what she wants an opinion on, they're willing to help with. They were both there when she picked out her gown. (Picking out their dresses has been put on hold until much closer to time, what with both of them being pregnant.) They've been helpful every step of the way.

She loves both of them dearly.

She's extremely grateful to have both of them in her life.

But they aren't Tali.

That had been the first dream. The little girl's fantasy wedding. That one day she'd hand her bouquet to her sister, who would stand tall and proud next to her at her wedding.

But that dream was beyond dead. Tali will not be there to stand up next to her. Her father cannot give her away. Her mother will not walk beside him to do it. Ari won't give her husband-to-be a stern talking to, let alone help lift her aloft during the dancing. Her chuppah won't be in an olive grove. Her wedding feast won't be outside, air scented with olive blossoms and lemons. Her wedding won't be in Hebrew.

Literally nothing of that dream, save for the white dress and the gold wedding band, had survived.

And they aren't Jen. Granted the version of Ziva that met Jenny Shepard on a mission in Europe wasn't thinking wedding bells, let alone much of anything beyond getting the job done. But Jenny had made a way into Ziva's heart.

Jenny was fierce, driven, sharp and dangerous, and broken but functional. Jenny got Ziva, got her in a way that no other woman ever had.

And it was really nice to have a female friend.

So, no, she hadn't thought of Jen as the woman who would stand beside her at her wedding, because she wasn't thinking she'd ever get married then. Didn't much think about the idea that she'd ever live past thirty then. But when she conjured an image of a woman who had her back, who would go to the wall to keep her safe, that woman had red hair, a slight build, and an easy, warm smile.

And since Jen's been dead, there's been yet another hole in her world.

She knows Abby felt that, too. That for her there was a Kate shaped hole at their wedding. And it isn't any disrespect to Jimmy, it doesn't mean she didn't love him, but he wasn't her first choice.

He was the choice that was left.

And of the choices she has left… She's known Abby longer, but is probably slightly more fond of Breena. But Breena will be eight months pregnant at their wedding, and if Sammy decides to show up early…

Ziva picked up her phone. "Hello, Abby…"


	141. Chapter 141

A/N: Okay, I don't usually do author's notes in the beginning of chapters, but this might be really hard reading for some of you. The next week of Shards is going to be very dark. This is a real look at a stillbirth, and nothing about the next week is fun or easy. If you want light and fluffy, come back in a week or so, when thing'll be perking back up again.

* * *

"It's Breena!" They'd all been waiting for this call. Up until two hours ago, when they caught this case, Jimmy had been planning on going with her for the 21st week ultrasound, but Simpson Wallen was found dead, and Jimmy's on, so instead of finding out with Breena if Sammy is a girl or a boy, he's here, helping Ducky bag up a dead Marine.

They watched his face fall as he absorbed what was being said to him. And that sent a thrill of fear through all of them. Jimmy should be grinning. He should have a huge, beaming grin, the sort that lights up his eyes and makes everyone near him happy.

But he didn't. His voice was shaking as he says, "Yeah… uh huh… Is Breena all right? … Yes… As soon as I can get there." Palmer was white as a sheet as he hung up his phone. "Dr. Mallard, I have to leave."

"What's wrong, Jimmy?" Ducky's fear clear in his voice.

"There's… Sammy… I have to go."

Ducky gave Jimmy a hug, and then nodded at him.

Tim caught Gibbs' eye, and Gibb's nodded. He handed the camera over, and followed two steps behind Jimmy.

"Let me drive. Last thing Breena needs is you getting in an accident on the way. Where is she?"

"Mercy General."

"Okay." He punched it into the GPS on his cell, tossed the car into reverse, pulling away from the crime scene, fast. "We'll be there in an hour. Molly at daycare?"

"Yeah."

"I'll drop you off, call them, and watch her. Don't worry about getting home at any given time."

"Good."

Tim took Jimmy's hand in his and gave it a squeeze. Jimmy held onto him, hard.

"Did they tell you…"

Jimmy nodded, tears streaming down his face. "There was no heartbeat."

* * *

They don't say anything on the ride over. Jimmy cries quietly, and Tim holds his hand. It's a very long hour and the only thing allowing Tim to hold it together is that he's got to pay attention to the road and get Jimmy where he needs to be.

"Give me your cell and keys," he says once he stops the car in front of the hospital.

Jimmy just looks at him blankly as he unbuckled.

"You shouldn't have to tell everyone. We'll make the calls for you. And I need your keys to unlock your car and grab Molly's car seat."

Jimmy handed over the items and headed in to the hospital, too out of it to close the door behind him.

* * *

The Navy Yard was only a few minutes out of the way between Mercy and Molly's daycare, so Tim headed there first. He'd sent their team a text: _Abby's ten minutes. _Then he sent one more to Gibbs. _Go see Abby, now._ And then called her to give her the heads up first.

"Hey. What's up? Did you guys find out, yet? I haven't heard anything."

He hasn't tried to say anything since Jimmy left, and he's not sure how well his voice will hold.

Finally he gets a hold of himself and says, "Is Gibbs down there?"

"Just walked in. What's going on? You're scaring me. He's looking like grim death and just wrapped me in a hug."

"I just dropped Jimmy at the hospital. They did the ultrasound, and Sammy's heart wasn't beating." For a long second he heard nothing, and then the sobbing started.

A second after that Gibbs said, "I've got her."

"I just pulled into the parking lot. I'll be there in five minutes."

* * *

When he got into the lab, everyone else, including Vance, was there. Abby was crying, and Gibbs was holding onto her.

He walked over to them, and just held Abby, wanting to get down on his knees and thank God or anything else that they're crying for Jimmy and Breena and not themselves. He feels bad about that, but it's still the first thing that hits him as he sees Abby. Gibbs patted him on the back, so he swallowed, took a deep breath, and pulled back a little, but kept holding onto Abby.

Tim's never wanted to say anything less than he wants to say this, but the words have to be said, "They did the ultrasound, and the Sammy's heart wasn't beating." They were all expecting something like this. Coming down and finding Gibbs holding a sobbing Abby had to be confirmation that nothing he was going to say was good, but the words still hit like a blow.

Tony winced. Ziva physically flinched away from it. Ducky hunched in on himself, Tim could see him physically forcing himself not to cry. Gibbs was behind him, so he didn't see his face, but he can feel the hand on his back rubbing gently. And Vance just nodded slowly, swallowing hard.

He turned to Vance. "Jimmy's not going to be in for a few days, at least." He looked around at the rest of them. "I'm not, either. I told him I'd get Molly and watch her."

Abby broke away from them, heading toward her coat. "I'll come with you."

Ducky stopped her, gently. "Abigail." His voice cracked a little, so he took another deep breath, and steadied himself before saying, "I know you want to help, but right now… Right now you might be the last person Breena wants to see."

"Oh." That sunk in, and… yeah… They don't know if that's true or not. He wants Abby to go with him, wants to keep her in his sight as much as he possibly can, but he'd also rather chew off his own arm than do anything that might make this any worse at all for Jimmy or Breena when they get home.

Tim took Jimmy's cell out of his pocket and handed it to her. "I told him we'd make the calls for them. That they shouldn't have to spread the word themselves."

Abby nodded, took a deep breath, and forced her voice to grow calm. "I can do that."

"Okay. I've got to get Molly." He wrapped around Abby again, head on her shoulder, her head on his. He held her for another minute before pulling back and saying, "If one of you were to meet them at the hospital and drive them home, that'd probably be a good thing."

"I'll be waiting for them," Ducky said.

As he was leaving, he heard Tony say to Abby, "Let's split the list, no one should have to say this too many times."


	142. Chapter 142

At a week shy of eleven months old, Molly Palmer is an adorable little ball of curly brown hair, a big, drooly eight toothed grin, and, with the exception of when she's teething, a possessor of a generally sunny disposition.

They spend enough time with the Palmers that she knows Uncle Tim, and lights right up when she sees him. Sure this isn't the usual routine, but time with one of her favorite people, a guy who dotes on her and is insanely good at blowing raspberries on her tummy, is always a good thing.

Tim has no idea of how much she can read/understand of the vibe of the place around her. And explaining why he was picking her up as he showed his ID and was checked off on the list of approved people to pick Molly up, sent the generally perky mood of her caregivers into a tailspin.

Still, he doesn't want her getting worried or agitated, so he slaps a painfully fake smile on his face, says, "Hey, Molly-girl," and sweeps her up into a hug and tickles.

"You and I are going to hang out tonight. Get some quality time together. Go easy on me, I haven't done this on my own since you were a month old, and we both mostly slept that time. Your Aunt Abby took pictures of it."

He just kept talking at her, letting her coo and babble back at him. She's not walking or talking, yet, but she's certainly interested in being part of the conversation, and she'll readily scoot toward whatever might be going on as fast as her little self can go.

Tim got her in her car seat, and then they headed back to Jimmy and Breena's.

He didn't really know what to do once he got there. It was barely 4:30, so probably not dinnertime for Molly, yet.

Tim went to the kitchen and found a sippy-cup. He poured some juice in it for Molly, and handed it to her. She seemed to approve, slurping it down.

"Probably a good idea." He got himself a glass of water. Then a thought hit. They'd been getting ready to paint the room that was going to be Sammy's.

"Let's go upstairs." Molly didn't have any comments on that, so up they went. One door down from Jimmy and Breena's room was Sammy's and yes, the door was open. Breena had painted some large swatches of the potential main colors along with different trim colors on the wall. The box with the new crib was leaning against the wall, Molly's old bassinette was in the middle of the room, next to the boxes with the baby clothing labeled nb, 0-3, 3-6, and 6-9. "Let's just close this door. They'll open it again when they're ready for it."

* * *

Being a cop, let alone a cop who deals mainly with murders and kidnappings means Tim routinely sees people on the worst days of their lives.

But the fact that you do it often, that it's your job, just makes you numb to it when it's a stranger's pain. When your two best friends walk into their home looking like they've been tortured, you can't shut down the way your own heart breaks for them.

Breena's crying. The kind of deep, distressed crying that's gone through sobbing to exhausted and beyond. He's fairly sure the only reason she's on her feet is because Jimmy's holding her up. And the only thing keeping Jimmy up right now is the fact that he can't, won't let Breena fall.

The last time he saw someone that wounded who mattered that much to him was when they were bringing Ziva back from Somalia. Once they were back on the plane, free and safe, he finally relaxed enough to really see how she was. And what she was was broken. Huddled in her seat, curled in on herself. Gibbs sat next to her, his hand on her shoulder, looking like he wanted to hold her, and sure that she couldn't take it.

Breena looks like Ziva did that day. Just utterly broken.

He was feeding Molly when they came in, mostly a job of fetching the cheerios she was tossing off her tray. He jumped up and was next to them in maybe three steps and then stopped, not sure if Breena wants to be touched or not.

Jimmy catches the hesitation and nods, and he wraps both of them into his arms. "I'm so sorry."

He holds both of them, crying with them, half aware of the sound of Ducky talking to Molly in the background. Eventually he pulled back a little to ask, "What do you need?"

"Just… keep watching her," Jimmy gets out.

"No problem. We're wrapping up dinner."

Jimmy nods, and they head upstairs to be alone with each other.

He sits next to Ducky at the kitchen table. "Do you know…?"

"No. I didn't press for details, and neither of them wanted to talk on the ride home." Ducky holds onto Molly, snuggling her, keeping her close to him, wrapped in his arms. Then, with a very deep sigh and an even deeper look of weariness on his face, he hands her back to Tim and says, "I have to go back. The autopsy isn't finished."

"Okay."

"Tony and Ziva are going to make sure Breena's car gets here. But they're not going to come in."

That made a certain amount of sense. Right now Jimmy and Breena are too raw for other people.

"Abby, Tony, and Ziva made the calls. They tell me Breena's parents will be coming over."

"I'll handle it."

"Good." Ducky kisses Molly one last time, lips lingering on her forehead in a way that makes Molly look puzzled, squeezes Tim's shoulder, and then puts his coat and hat back on before heading back to work.

* * *

As he's wrapping up Molly's leftovers, it occurs to Tim that it's been at least six hours since Jimmy ate last. And while he's sure neither of them want to eat, Jimmy has to.

He roots around in the fridge, sure nothing he's going to come up with will taste good tonight, but he hopes to find something that'll stay down. At least, he knows he hasn't eaten because he's upset enough he feels like he wants to throw up, so he doesn't imaging Breena or Jimmy are doing any better.

Tim puts together a collection of cold cuts, cheeses, some veggies and fruits. Jimmy and Breena don't have anything he'd call comfort food, but comfort foods in his world are carbs, preferably sweet, baked ones, and Jimmy doesn't/shouldn't eat that.

Tim walks into their room, and finds Jimmy and Breena sitting on their bed, Jimmy holding her, both of them crying quietly.

He put the plate of food next to them, and wraps his arm around Breena. Jimmy pushes the food aside.

"Look, I know you don't want to eat. But you have to." Jimmy takes a half-hearted bite of a cucumber slice.

Tim nods. "Abby's called everyone and started to spread the word." He's rubbing Breena's back, looking her in the face. "She called your parents, and they're on their way. If you want to be alone, I'll keep them downstairs, but they want to see you."

Breena looks at Jimmy, and Tim can see her imagining Jimmy and her dad, and the wave of exhaustion at the idea of dealing with that slumps her shoulders even further. "Just Mom for now."

"Okay. I'll keep Ed busy. Molly's fed, and we'll do bath time soon, and then bed time."

"She nurses before going to sleep," Breena says.

"Okay. You want me to bring her up?"

"Not yet. She…" Breena's voice broke, but Tim thinks he gets the idea. Molly'll start crying if she's being held by someone else who's crying, and Breena can't take any more than is already on her plate.

"Okay, let me get back down to her. She's in the playpen but…" he doesn't need to say that keeping an eye on a ten month old who's getting this crawling thing down is a very good plan.

* * *

About half an hour later Ed and Jeannie were standing in the foyer at Jimmy and Breena's, also looking like the walking wounded.

"Where are they?" Jeannie asked.

"Upstairs, in their bedroom."

Jeannie nodded and started up, Ed a step behind her.

"Ed." He put his hand on Ed's wrist, and Ed stopped, turned toward him.

"What?"

"You aren't going up there."

"She's my daughter, and she's just lost her baby."

"I know. But he was Jimmy's baby, too, and if you go up there, you'll say something that hurts him worse than he's already hurting. And Breena can't take you two squabbling. So you don't get to go up there. He'll come down eventually, and you can go up then. So for right now, you and I are on putting Molly to bed duty. I've been telling her that Grandpa is coming over, and he'll read her stories, and as best as she seems to understand, she's looking forward to it, so plaster a smile on your face and grab Goodnight Moon."

Ed closed his eyes, took a deep breath, steadied himself, and slowly opened them. "He… Did they find out…"

Tim shook his head. "I don't know. Breena thought he was a boy, so I'm just in the habit of calling Sammy he."

"Okay."

Tim realized that Ed was hurting, and that in his own efforts to be protective of Jimmy, he's been a jerk to Ed.

"I'm sorry, Ed. I'm being a jerk. But they're both really fragile right now…"

Ed nodded, forced a fairly sad grin onto his face, and headed into the living room, scooping Molly up, hugging her very close for a long time, and then tickling her.

* * *

About an hour later, when tubby and stories were done, and Molly had nursed, cuddled with both her parents, and been put to bed, Jimmy came downstairs. He let Ed know he could go see Breena and then just stood there in the middle of his living room.

He looked around, blankly, "Where's Abby?"

"Our place."

His shoulders slumped further. "Oh."

"She wanted to come, but we weren't sure how Breena'd feel…"

That clicked for Jimmy, and he seemed to think that might be a valid point. He's standing in the middle of the living room, looking so wounded, and Tim suddenly gets why Jimmy would want Abby right now.

Tim stood up. "Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"Outside." He grabbed both of their jackets and held Jimmy's open. Jimmy put it on. Tim had the feeling Jimmy would do pretty much anything he was told to right this moment.

"Why?"

"Because it's private." Tim took Jimmy by the hand, and led him to the picnic table at the back of their property. Once they got there, he cleared a patch of snow from the table, took Jimmy's glasses off, carefully set them down, and wrapped his arms around him, half shielding him from the cold air, half trying to be Abby for him. He felt Jimmy standing there stiffly. "I know you'd rather do this with Abby, but she's not here, and you still need it. We're far enough out Ed's not going to walk in and call us fags, you won't wake Molly if you're loud, and I'm not Breena, so you don't have to comfort me. I've got you, Jimmy."

And Jimmy crumpled into him, shaking and sobbing while Tim held him and rubbed his back. Eventually gasping sobs slowed down, and eventually Jimmy pulled back and sat down on the top of the picnic table. Tim sat next to him, keeping his arm around his shoulder, hoping his touch is comforting.

"They think it was trisomy 13, but they won't know until they do the tests. Something like ninety percent of the babies with it die in utero, and almost eighty percent of the ones who are born die within a year of birth, mostly within a month, and at this point, none of them have made it past six years." His voice is raw and hollow. Shell-shocked, that's the term that comes to Tim's mind.

"We've got to go back tomorrow so they can induce labor."

Those words feel like a punch to the gut and make Tim want to vomit at this new extra layer of flaying pain on top of a bonfire of agony. Labor means hours of pain, hours of waiting, means this isn't just over and done with.

"They gave us a choice. We could do a D&E, which is fast, but…" Tim knows enough about this that he's got an idea of how a D&E works, so he's fairly sure what 'but' means. "Or induce, which is slow… but he'll be whole, and we'll get to hold him…" That set off another round of ragged crying, which slowed after a few minutes.

"Sammy was a boy." Tim squeezed Jimmy's shoulders a little tighter. "They didn't want me to see the scans, but I did the whole, I'm-a-doctor thing. Now I wish I hadn't, 'cause I can't unsee them. No eyes, cleft palate, no kidneys, a hole in his heart, less than a third the size brain he should have had. And she had to sit there, alone, seeing him on the ultrasound, because they were doing the 4d-look-here's-your-baby thing before they shut it down, and I wasn't there."

Tim doesn't say anything, because there's nothing to say. Just hearing about it makes his knees feel week and his stomach clench. He doesn't even want to try to imagine living it. He just sits there next to Jimmy, holding onto him.

"You know what's terrible?"

Tim shook his head, all of this is terrible, but obviously there's somewhere Jimmy wants to go with this.

"I'm relieved his heart wasn't beating. Because if it had been, then we would have had to decide to terminate or not."

"I don't think that's terrible. Having to make that choice is the only thing I can think of that would make this worse."

Jimmy stared at the sky. It's overcast, looks and feels like it'll start snowing any minute. He's working up to saying something, and Tim's fairly sure what it is, fairly sure that Jimmy needs to say the words, to make it real.

"My son's dead." Jimmy started sobbing again, and Tim held him, rubbing his back, crying with him, as the snow began to fall.


	143. Chapter 143

An hour later, they're both numb with cold, covered in snow that's melted and frozen into their hair, but Jimmy's finally cried out. For now, at least.

"I should go back in," Jimmy said, voice rough and raw.

"Okay. When do you have to be there?"

"Seven."

"Abby and I'll take Molly for as long as you need."

Jimmy nods.

"Do you think it's okay for Abby to come?"

"Yeah. I think Breena could use some Abby hugs. I know I do."

"Okay. I'm going to stay out a bit longer, give Abby a call. I'll crash here, make sure you're up and out in time. Just, rest, as much as you can."

Jimmy laughed bitterly at that, picked up his glasses, and headed into the house.

* * *

He hit Abby's contact on his phone and a few rings later said, "Hey. Did I wake you?"

"No." She sounds really tired, though. "Not going to sleep tonight." Good point. He's not feeling like he's going to get any sleep, either.

"Jimmy wants you to come over."

"I'll be there in half an hour."

There are a lot of things he wants to say to her right now, a lot of feelings, but it's cold, and he should head in soon, and the sooner he's done talking the sooner she's on the road, so he says, "I love you, Abby."

"I love you, too." He can hear that she got what he was trying to say. Then she asks, "Do you have any more details?"

He swallows, forces his voice to stay steady. "Yeah. They think it was trisomy 13, which is apparently a condition where pretty much everything that possibly could go wrong, does. They've got to go back to the hospital in the morning to induce labor."

"Oh God."

"Yeah."

* * *

"You're still here," Ed said quietly. He was slumped on the sofa, open beer in his hand, but Tim could see the bottle was still full.

"Where else would I be?"

Ed shrugged. "Thought you left. Where's your Goth?"

"Home. She's ten weeks pregnant and we weren't sure if Breena would want…" Ed nodded understanding that. "Jimmy says it's okay, so she'll be here soon. Spend some time holding Breena, she's really good at hugs. Help me with Molly in the morning. Are you guys going to drive them to the hospital?"

"Yeah."

"You take the guest room; we can camp out on the sofa."

"Okay."

* * *

When Abby came in the door, she'd clearly been crying. Clearly been crying pretty much the whole time since he last saw her.

She also had two large bags in one hand.

"What's that?"

"Pads, nursing pads. Her body doesn't know…" Abby didn't finish that sentence and switches to, "She'll give birth, and then her body'll do what it's supposed to do after that. Her milk will let down, and she'll bleed, probably for a couple weeks, maybe as long as a month or six weeks, and I was thinking that they might not want to have to go out and get them."

"Oh." Tim closes his eyes and slumps a little further into the sofa, his heart breaking even more for Breena. It just kept getting worse. A constant reminder every minute of every day for weeks.

"Yeah. I'll head up."

"I think they'd like that."

* * *

He jerked when he felt the sofa cushion shift. Abby snuggling in next to him. He hadn't thought he was asleep, but judging from the fact that she had gotten down the steps, across the living room, and onto the sofa without him noticing, he probably had been.

"Sorry. Didn't want to wake you, but I just needed you to hold onto me."

"Yeah. I know." He rubbed his eyes, shifted onto his side, making more room for her, and wrapped around her. "They asleep?"

"Ish. More like they hit the point where they're so exhausted they just dropped."

He nodded, familiar with that feeling. "What time is it?"

"Little after three."

"I told Jimmy I'd make sure they were up and ready in time."

"Shouldn't be a problem, Molly wakes up before they need to leave."

"Good. I googled trisomy 13." Which is part of how he deals with bad things happening. Learn everything he can about them, and once Ed headed upstairs he was just sitting there in their living room, unable to sleep, uninterested in TV, and staring at the wall was useless. So he got on his phone and read everything he could find on it. Then, because the part of his brain that had been doing a pretty good job of keeping him from worrying about this in regards to Kelly had been completely shut down, he researched pretty much any other genetic abnormality he could find, starting with Down's Syndrome and only stopping when the battery died on his phone.

"And?"

"And it's like Down's Syndrome, sort of. Three of the thirteenth chromosome instead of three of the twenty-first. Most of the time it's a random mutation, a one in ten thousand chance. But there is a gene you can carry that passes it on, as well. No way to tell without testing for it. It's bad. Apparently there's a really bad version that's basically always fatal, and then there's a not quite as bad version that's just usually fatal."

"Great."

"Yeah."

"What's it actually do?"

"Brain damage, heart damage, kidney damage, eye damage, palate damage, polydactyl hands and feet, I think there was other stuff, but I'm not coming up with it right now." He lay there, his chin on her shoulder, breathing in her scent, his hand cupped over her belly, like somehow just his hands could be a shield against horrific fate.

She squeezed his hand. There was really nothing to say. "Let's try to rest."

He kissed her shoulder, holding onto her tightly, wishing, like a little boy, that it could be yesterday again.


	144. Chapter 144

They got the call from Gibbs a little after nine. "I know you don't want to hear this, but one of the two of you has to show up. I've got a ton of evidence and no one to run it."

"But…" Tim's really not feeling like doing anything beyond watching Molly, and right now his duty to Jimmy and Breena and Molly trumps everything else.

"I know, Tim, but Molly doesn't need both of you watching her, and Palmer and Breena don't know or care if you're both there or not. Vance has someone coming up from Norfolk tomorrow, but we need someone to run the lab today. I don't care which of you does it. I don't care if you show up and it's slow, or Abby comes and gets it done, but it has to happen because I cannot tell Wallen's widow that we are doing nothing to catch her husband's killer. She's grieving too, and it's our job to help."

Abby was listening to the call, so she said, "I'll come in. The faster this gets done, the faster we can both be back here."

"That works."

* * *

Molly was getting fussy. She's got no idea what's wrong, but something is. Her schedule is off, she didn't get to nurse in the morning, she's not playing with the ladies at daycare, which seems to happen on a pretty regular basis, but when that happens she's with her mom and dad, and they aren't here, either.

Tim feels like he's a wits end. He's already only about two seconds away from bursting into tears, because whenever he's not actively thinking about anything else, he can see the look on Jimmy and Breena's faces as they left this morning and each time he sees it, it rips him apart. A crabby baby on top of that isn't helping his control.

And of course the fact that he's close to bursting into tears just makes Molly crabbier.

It's like the most perfect vicious circle he's ever seen.

So he bundles both of them up, pops her into her stroller, and realizes that trying to take her for a walk when there's four inches of snow on all the sidewalks is futile.

She's fussing even more, now. Apparently she was in favor of a walk and considered him getting her ready for a walk, stepping outside, and then turning back around immediately to be cruel teasing. So he takes her out of the stroller, pops her into her car seat, and heads toward Jimmy's car.

"Come on. Let's go for a drive. Maybe, if I'm lucky, you'll fall asleep, and I'll get some lunch for us."

She seemed to approve of that. So off they went.

* * *

Ducky came by at dinnertime, food in hand, looking haggard.

"News?" Tim asked.

Ducky opened the bag and laid out Chipotle for both of them, putting a bit of carnitas, rice, and guacamole in front of Molly. She grinned and tucked into it. Apparently rice and guacamole is her idea of very tasty and also a lot of fun to play with.

"Breena was at seven centimeters when I left. They think everything will be done by morning. She'll stay there for at least a day to make sure the infection doesn't get too bad and that she doesn't have any adverse reactions to the antibiotics—"

Ducky sees Tim's look. _What infection?_ is pretty clear on his face.

"Apparently the last time she could remember feeling him move was two days ago. So, they are assuming that's when he died. In cases like this, they automatically administer large doses of antibiotics because—"

Tim's nodding, he doesn't want to hear the end of that sentence. He's seen enough dead bodies to know what happens to one if it spends two days in a warm, wet, bacteria-rich environment.

He looks at his burrito and wraps it back up.

"When was the last time you ate something, Timothy?"

"Lunch. When was the last time you slept, Ducky?"

"The night before last."

"You want to crash here?"

"No. Ed has been on his best behavior, or is just too sad to talk, either way, I want to make sure Jimmy has someone to shield him."

Tim nods at that. "I understand. You safe to drive?"

"Yes. Part of training for both medical school and the military involved going long periods of time without sleep. As long as I eat, rest when I can, and maintain a steady intake of tea, I'll be fine for two days."

"Okay. So, you're going back after dinner."

"Yes, I wanted to check in on you, spend some time with Molly, and then I'll be able to report back to Jimmy and Breena that she's fine."

"She is. Little crabby and unhappy because everything is upside down right now. But we're doing okay."

"Good."

Tim's phone buzzed. He glanced at it, and said to Ducky, "That's Abby, she's done with the evidence."

"Then she'll be here soon."

"Forty minutes."

* * *

The official time of birth and death for Jonathon Christopher Palmer was 4:06 AM January 8, 2015.

* * *

Jimmy and Ducky came home a bit after dinner. Jimmy didn't say anything, just took Molly and held her close, crying the whole time.

When she started sobbing in response to him, Tim gently took her away, got her calmed down and put to bed.

Once that was done, he headed out of Molly's room. The door to Jimmy and Breena's was open a few inches, and he could hear soft crying and Abby's voice murmuring something. He figured it being open was an invitation to go in, but wanted to check in with Ducky first, so he headed downstairs.

Ducky was sitting on the sofa, a plate with some dinner on it on his lap, eating with a sort of mechanical precision that looked significantly more like a man fueling a machine than one savoring a meal.

"It's over?"

"Yes. Breena's sleeping. Between the pain medication and her exhaustion they don't expect her to wake up until the morning. Her sisters are with her right now. They sent Jimmy and the rest of us home to get some rest, too."

"You think he'll sleep?"

"I put a mild sedative in the coffee I gave him before we left. Between that and how tired he is, it should knock him out."

"When can she come home?"

"Tomorrow, maybe the next day. It was as 'easy'," his voice goes sharp with scorn on that word, "as such things can be, which is to say beyond utter horror, but she'll heal. Given enough time, they both will."

"Did they get to hold him?"

Ducky's eyes tear up, and he nods. He wipes them, sniffs, and says, "We all did. He was ten inches long and weighed fifteen ounces. He had perfect little fingernails."

Tim's crying and nodding. "What happens now?"

"Breena's parents took him for cremation. There'll be a service on Saturday."

"Okay. Are you staying tonight? I can move our stuff out of the guestroom if you want it."

"I am staying. And I am fine on the sofa. I'm a going to finish this, get a long, hot shower, and then go to sleep. In the morning, I'll take Jimmy back to the hospital. Abby, too if you're okay with Molly on your own."

"We'll be fine."

* * *

Tim headed upstairs, eased the door open to Jimmy's room, and found both of them on the bed, Abby holding Jimmy. He wasn't crying anymore. Tim wasn't entirely sure if he was still awake, so he crept up quietly.

Jimmy looked up at him, so much for being asleep. "You want me to stay?"

Jimmy nodded, so Tim sat next to him, and wrapped his arms around both of them.

And that's how Jimmy spent his first night home, sleeping fitfully, held by his two best friends.

Breena came home a little after dinner the next day, and Tim and Abby stayed with them until the service after the funeral was cleaned up and everyone else had left.


	145. A Funeral And A Prayer

Of all the funerals they've been to together, this is the one that hurts the worst.

For Kate there was the fact that Ari was dead. Gibbs had killed him. And if vengeance is hollow in the light of grief, it's better than nothing.

For Jenny, at least she went out on her own terms. Instead of wasting away, or letting the bad guys win, she took control and ended things the way she wanted them. Tim's not sure if that really helped or not, he wasn't close enough to Jen to really need the comfort, hollow though it probably was. But in the long run, he doesn't think that helped, much.

All of that was true for Mike, and he had a good, long life to go with it. Though as Tim gets older, Mike's sixty-three years seems less and less like a long life. But it still didn't make standing there with Abby, crying over him, any better.

This is like Jackie Vance's funeral, times a million because Jimmy and Breena are family and Jon, or at least the hope and idea of Jon, was beloved. There's nothing to say, no platitudes that help.

This is the lightning strike, the out of control car that barrels through your living room wall. There's no context that comforts. Nothing you can do to protect yourself from it.

This is the paralyzing horror of random chance, the roll of the die coming up wrong.

And at this funeral, Tim didn't even try to not cry.

* * *

They got home and just crashed on the sofa. He pulled his tie loose and popped the top button on his collar as she kicked off her heels.

"I hate this suit."

"Huh?" Abby looked at him with puffy, red eyes, and an air of bone-deep, weary sorrow about her.

He shook his head. "I only wear it to funerals. Haven't worn it since Mike's. Right now I just want to set fire to the damn thing."

She looked at their fireplace, fifteen feet away on the opposite wall. "That would require getting up."

"True."

"Do you want to get up?"

"No." Fifteen feet might as well be the other side of the earth right now.

They just sat there. Tim picked up the remote, turned the TV on, remembered they'd gotten rid of cable in favor of all streaming content a month ago, and turned the TV off. It's not that he wants to watch anything, he just wants some blank, meaningless noise in the background, wants the empty, hypnotic feel of just flipping through the channels.

"You hungry?" Abby asked. There had been food at Jimmy and Breena's after the funeral, but neither of them had felt like eating. Tim wasn't sure if a funeral followed by a… wake he guesses—wakes in his world are loud, usually drunk affairs, with stories and songs, and this was anything but that—at Jimmy and Breena's made sense, but her parents thought it would help, and well, he figures that if anyone gets the details of the whole mourning thing, it's the Slaters.

"Nope. I'll get you something if you want it."

"Not now."

They just sit there, his arm around her, her head on his shoulder, her legs over his.

The last time they hurt this bad… he shook his head… they've never hurt this bad, not together.

Kate was probably close for her. And that certainly hurt him. Hurt in a lot of different ways on a lot of different levels, but when it came down to it, he didn't love Kate. He liked her. He really liked her. But they'd only really worked together for a year, and he was Probie to her, even if she didn't call him that the way Tony did.

Mike was closer. His death held a similar combination of sorrow and fear. But the intensity is different. This is a thousand times sharper because it happened to Jimmy and Breena, and is so close to their own life.

He kisses the top of her head, hand stroking idly over her knee.

She took her hand in his and dragged it up her leg, his palm on her mound.

"Abby?" They haven't made love since the night before they found out about Jon. He knows he hasn't felt anything even remotely like sexual desire since then, and he was fairly sure she had felt the same way.

She cups his face in her hands. "I just want to not hurt for a little bit."

"Oh." Yeah, it'll work for that. His thumb starts a slow, gentle back and forth, and she relaxes into him.

Eventually she's reaching for his fly, shifting from sitting across his lap to straddling him. He's not even particularly hard. Enough to get it in, and that's all that matters. This isn't about pleasure, it's not even sex as sex, it's barely comfort, just surcease.

It's what you hope to find when you reach for a bottle. But Abby can't do that right now, and he won't.

And in the end they were crying again. And that doesn't help, either. Doesn't make anything better.

There's just clinging to each other, hoping time will be merciful and peace will eventually come.

* * *

"Does it help?" Tim asked as he sat on the second-from-the-bottom step in Gibbs' basement. It's well after one AM, and Tim figured that after lying in bed, staring at the ceiling for three hours he wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon, so he headed to Gibbs' place.

Gibbs poked his head out of the Shannon.

"Does what help?"

Tim shrugged. "Never mind."

"You sure?" _You look like you need to talk_ was on Gibbs' face, but he's also not going to press Tim for words.

"The pastor kept talking about the promise of eternal life. That one day we'll all meet again. You believe that, right?"

Gibbs nodded as he got out of the boat.

"I don't. Jimmy doesn't. Does it help?"

"Sometimes. Not right now. Not this close to it. This close and nothing helps. Later's not much comfort when you need something now. But later, when the pain dulls down some, yeah, it helps. Makes it easier to get through the hard times."

"Abby's been praying."

"Not a bad plan."

"Not sure I like the idea of a God who gets off on dangling the idea in front of you that if you beg hard enough, He might do what you want, but really He's going to do whatever the hell He was going to do anyway."

Gibbs shook his head, sighing, and sat next to Tim, wrapping an arm around him. "Your dad's a real son of a bitch, isn't he?"

Tim snorted at that. "No, he's an asshole. Calling him a son of a bitch is an insult to my grandmother. And yes, he is a complete asshole who gets off on that, too."

Gibbs pets the back of Tim's head a little, shaking his own.

"You pray because it makes you feel better, Tim. God's gonna do what He's gonna do whether you pray or not. You don't do it because if you ask hard enough the hand of God comes down and cups a little protective shield over you and yours. That's not how it works, not for anyone I've ever met. You do it because it helps you see better, clearer, and sometimes it gives you the perspective you need to find some peace. You do it because sometimes you need a place to scream 'This sucks' and 'I hate it' and 'It's not fair' and 'Why me' and 'I'm scared' and all the rest of the stuff the rest of the world calls whining. And you pray, because if you're any sort of decent man, and I know you are, sometimes you heart is so full of love and thanks that there's nothing else that makes any sense to do."

Tim nods, he knows that feeling.

"You pray, Tim, because the world is hard enough, and being alone just makes it that much harder. You pray because you need it. And, look, maybe it doesn't help, maybe nothing changes and nothing gets better, but it feels better, and sometimes you need that to keep you going."

"Sometimes I wish I believed. Wish I could make myself do it."

Gibbs didn't say anything for a long time, but finally he said, "I know they're waiting for me."

"Jethro?"

"My girls, Mike, too. They talk to me, sometimes."

Tim just stared at Gibbs, eyes wide.

"You think I'm insane."

Tim's shocked enough by that he tells the truth. "It sounds insane."

Gibbs smirks a little at that. "Which is why I don't tell people about it."

"Like, voice in your head?"

"No. I see them, too. Been almost dead enough times that sometimes they visit."

"Oh." Tim nodded a little, his eyebrows high, but that sort of makes sense to him, too.

Gibbs squeezed him a little tighter. "It works out, Tim. And in cases like Sammy… Jonathon… I don't know how. Maybe when they're together again he'll be the man he would have been. Maybe not. I don't know. But it works out. I do know that. One of these days, you'll meet my girls, and I'll be damn proud to introduce you."

"God, Jethro." Tim took a long shaking breath, and looked away, trying to stop his tears.

"Hey. Hey." Gibbs said soothingly, rubbing his back. "It's okay to cry when you're having this bad of a day."

"It didn't happen to me."

"Of course it happened to you. Your best friends, your nephew. You're allowed to grieve for that. It happened to all of us."

"No Jethro," Tim wipes his eyes. "_It didn't happen to me_, to us. She's forty, and there's like a one in seventy chance there's something seriously wrong with our baby… and… it's stupid, and it feels horrible, really, really horrible, but it's almost a relief. A sort of, lightning struck Jimmy so it won't hit us sort of thing. And that's shit, because it doesn't work that way, but there's still a sense of relief."

Gibbs kept rubbing Tim's back. "That's okay, too, Tim. Anyone who's been in combat has felt that. The bullet didn't hit you. He'll never say it, but Tony felt it when Kate died. He felt terrible about it because he's a good man, but it was there and it was real."

"Did you?"

"No. But… especially then, I wasn't as attached enough to my life to feel it."

"Oh."

"I felt it when the bomb went off. Me and mine came through. Those other poor bastards didn't, but we had a few minutes of charmed life. Made it a whole lot easier to go to Dearing's house."

"Oh."

"Yeah. He didn't punch my ticket the first time, so it wasn't going to happen. You take whatever comfort you can find where you can find it, especially for the things where there's nothing you can do. And this especially is something where there's nothing you can do."

"That's not entirely true."

Gibbs expression let Tim know to keep talking.

"Wednesday we've got an appointment for the Nuchal Fold testing. I don't know why Jimmy and Breena didn't have it done, probably because they're 'low risk,' but it tests for trisomies…" Gibbs doesn't seem to know what that means. "What Jonathon had, and Down's Syndrome, and a few other things. And if it's negative you sigh with relief and go on. But if it's positive, they do more testing, and then more, and then eventually you're only left with one choice: stop your baby's heart or not.

"Jimmy said that Sammy's heart not beating was a relief, that they didn't have to make the choice. And now, after eighteen hours of labor, and Breena'll bleeding for weeks, now I wonder if he would have rather known and been done earlier, when Sammy was still small enough for a D&C."

Gibbs shook his head, he doesn't know the answer to that, and doesn't want to imagine it clearly enough to try and figure the answer out. "What about you?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure I want to know. If we don't find out, then I can keep pretending everything is fine."

"Odds are that everything is fine. You find that out, and you don't have to pretend."

"Yeah, I know. But if things aren't… We'll do the twenty week scan no matter what, find out if she's really a she, so we're talking about two more months of not knowing."

"You're talking about pushing finding out far enough back so that no matter what the answer is, the decision is out of your hands."

"Yeah. In Virginia it's twenty-two weeks. If something is so badly wrong that you can just see it on an ultrasound, we'd still have time. But if it's questionable, and they wanted to do more testing, the clock would run out on us."

Tim spent a minute staring at the wall in front of him.

"I feel like such a coward for not wanting to know. Making the hard decisions, that's what being the parent is all about, right?"

"Yeah, Tim."

"You've got to do it, and you can't let the rest of the world do it for you."

"Yep."

Tim exhaled long and slow, and Gibbs sat next to him, keeping a hand on his shoulder, and let him think.


	146. Testing

He wasn't sure how to say it to Abby. He was pretty sure she'd agree with him, but they haven't talked about it, and she might not, and, the appointment was coming up, tomorrow in fact, and he had to talk to her about it because just whipping it out in front of Dr. Draz was a bad plan.

So after dinner, as they were settling down to relax on the sofa, he said to her, "No matter what the test comes up positive for… I don't care what might be wrong with her, I don't want to abort Kelly."

Abby gently touched his face. "And if she's sick and hurting…"

He kissed the palm of her hand. "Abby, unless keeping her alive means that she'll be in constant pain or hooked to a machine, unable to survive on her own, I want to keep her. If she's not normal… We've got money, we've got family for support, and I can quit my job to take care of her if need be."

Abby snuggled in next to Tim, laying his hands on her just starting to show belly, and kissing him gently. "Tim, did you think that would be a problem for me?"

"I really hoped it wouldn't. But we haven't talked about what if…"

"We probably should have. Unless she can't survive on her own, I want to keep her. If I'd had any reservations about keeping her, I wouldn't have risked getting pregnant."

"Okay."

"You scared?" she asked.

"Yes."

She nodded at that. "I'm refusing to worrying about it."

He looks at her, and she half-smiles, and they both know that's more a statement of intent than truth. Abby's forty, almost forty-one, and both of them are more that good enough at math to know how fast the Down's Syndrome rates skyrocket at her age.

She gives him that half-smile again. "Either the DNA did what it was supposed to, or it didn't, and either way there's nothing we can do to change it and nothing we're going to do about it besides love our child and give her the best life we can."

"Good. I'm still scared."

"Me, too."

* * *

Once again they were in a dim room, staring at a grainy white-on-black screen, trying to make out features as the ultrasound tech scoots the wand around looking for a good view.

Finally she finds it, and the image of Kelly's head, neck, upper back, and arms becomes clear.

She doesn't look much like a shrimp anymore. That's very clearly a baby.

The tech is using her mouse to make different measurements, and Tim wants to pound her with questions, all along the lines of 'is this what it's supposed to look like,' but the tech doesn't know. It's her job to measure, not diagnose.

When she finishes that, she checks Kelly's heart, which was quickly thrumming away. Tim squeezes Abby's hand as they see the tiny throbbing, almost blur of her heart pumping.

She points out finger buds and gets a shot of Kelly's feet. It's very possible he cooed a little at the two tiny feet on the screen. Abby certainly did.

* * *

And after, holding a new stack of ultrasound print outs, he waited for Abby to get dressed, and to then see Dr. Draz, who would look at all the measurements and say if Kelly looked okay.

They sat in her office, looking at the scans, not really talking much, just flipping through them. He took photos of them for his phone, and then sent them to her. And they waited.

About ten minutes later Dr. Draz came in, smile on her face, mouthing the correct pleasantries, which he doesn't have much patience for today. _Just get to it._

He's not sure if she read it off his face, or having done with the "How are you?" "Nice day out there." "Blah, blah, blah," she's ready to get to work, but she opens their folder, looks over something, flips through a few pages and says, "Everything looks fine. All of your baby's measurements were within the normal range."

And for the first time in more than a week Tim felt like he could breathe again.


	147. Anything You Need

"How are you doing?" Yesterday had been Jimmy's first day back, and also the last day of a hot case, so beyond a quick visit, Tim hadn't had time to get down to Autopsy.

Today they're filling out paperwork, and no one is going to say anything if he and Jimmy take an extra-long lunch. So they did.

Jimmy shrugged a little, his voice is pretty flat. "Not so bad. Everyone here has lost someone and knows what this feels like, sort of, at least. Tony's made some dumb jokes, but that's it, they're dumb jokes, designed to try and make me laugh. Ziva's brought food for us every day since you and Abby left. But 'well-meaning' assholes out there in the rest of the world keep saying horrible things to us.

"Why would you say, 'You'll have other children'? Yeah, it's true. We will, and if the genetic testing says we shouldn't try naturally, we'll adopt more kids, but why would you say that?" Flat is very rapidly being replaced by anger steeped in stupefaction. "If I told you my best friend died, you wouldn't say to me, 'You'll have other best friends.'" Jimmy stabbed the one of the pieces of chicken in his salad over and over with his fork. "One of the ladies at church said, 'Well, at least Molly's healthy.' You wouldn't tell someone who's mom just died, 'Well, at least your dad is healthy.'

"One of them said to us, 'You've got to trust that God knows what He's doing, and this is for the best.'" He shook his head, looking so tired. "No, I don't have to trust in that. I don't have to trust in anything. Trusting in a God who builds your hopes up and crushes them just for kicks is really damn low on my to-do list right now, thank you."

The stupefaction in his voice vanished, replaced by all anger. "I almost hit the woman who said it'd make us stronger. Would have done it if she had been a guy. I was perfectly fine being a cream puff, married to a cream puff, raising a little cream puff, dreaming about a new little cream puff, and I would have very happily lived my entire life never dealing with anything harder than being annoyed with Ed. The idea that it'll make me tougher isn't any comfort." He closed his eyes for a second, made himself calm down, and then looked at Tim again, who was pretty much just sitting there, across the booth from him, hoping to be useful by giving Jimmy a shot to say whatever he wanted or needed to.

"You know why they tell you not to tell anyone you're pregnant at first?"

Tim shook his head. Sure, he's familiar with the whole so-you-won't-have-to-tell-everyone-if-you-miscarry thing, but he's also sure that's not where Jimmy is going with this.

"It's so the rest of the world doesn't have to deal with your grief. If you don't tell anyone, then when you lose a baby you're just sad on your own, and if someone asks, you wave it away, force a grin on your face, and pretend to be all right. Every single one of those thoughtless 'comforting' words has been about only one thing only, shutting us down. 'You'll have other babies, so don't make me have to deal with you in mourning.' 'It's God's will, so stop making me uncomfortable by being sad.'"

"I'm so sorry."

"I know." Jimmy shook his head. "How hard was that? I'm sorry. I wish this didn't happen to you. I know it hurts, and it's not going to be better anytime soon, but I hope you heal quickly. And then shut the fuck up! How hard is that?" He wiped a tear away.

Tim shrugged. _I'm sorry_ and then shut-the-fuck-up has always been his way of dealing with grieving people. "How's Breena doing with it?"

"Angry, frustrated, sad… We both are… At least I can go to work and deal with the fact that what I do puts killers away. She's just surrounded by dead people."

"She went back to work?"

"For about an hour. Then one of the suppliers asked how the pregnancy was going, so she told him, and he said something about us having other babies, and Ed blew up at him. Apparently ripped him a new asshole, twice." Ed had been at their place when he got home, and seemed to really enjoy giving Jimmy the full play by play on what exactly he had said to that idiot. And for the first time ever, Jimmy completely approved of something Ed had done. "How bad at tact are you when Ed's schooling you in how to behave? Then she went home and spent the rest of the day snuggling with Molly. The only good thing about working for Ed is that he'll let her take as long off as she likes, and if she never wants to see a dead body again, he'll support her in that, too." There are a lot of things that are true about Ed Slater, that he doesn't like Jimmy, has no filter between his mouth and his brain, and values money and the security it buys too highly are all on the list. Him being a bad dad isn't.

"Tim. I really appreciated what you did for us, and for me."

"Jimmy, you're living my worst fear. Whatever you and Breena need, I'm here for."

"Thanks." Jimmy sat there, ate the piece of chicken he'd been mauling with his fork, and thought for a minute. "You guys had the nuchal fold testing, right?"

"Yeah, Wednesday."

"And…"

Tim hadn't been sure how to handle this. My baby's healthy and yours just died is way out of his depth, so he figured this would be another good shut-the-fuck-up topic, so he hadn't mentioned it. But if Jimmy's going to out and out ask, he's not going to lie about it. "And it came up clear. Everything's good, as best we can tell."

"I'm really happy for you." Jimmy looks like he's on the verge of crying again. "Do you have new ultrasound pics?"

"Yeah, four of them. I wasn't sure…"

"I'd like to see them."

"Okay." Tim pulls them up on his phone. Kelly's still too little to tell if she's a boy or a girl, but she's looking a whole lot more like a baby and less like a shrimp.

Jimmy just stared at the first shot, his finger tracing along the curve of Kelly's spine.

"You sure you want to see this?"

"Yeah." Jimmy closes his eyes, and then opens them again, looking at Tim. "It hurts, but… I'm still really glad for you guys. And I still can't wait to meet your little girl. And I don't want you feeling like you can't be happy around me. I need all the happy I can get these days. Breena does, too."

"Okay." So he points out toe buds and finger buds, and how she's about the size of a golf ball, all stuff Jimmy knows, but it's still a big deal for Tim. He shows Jimmy the shot of the two tiny feet, and Jimmy smiled a little at them.

And then he started crying.

Tim put his phone back into his pocket and switched seats, sitting next to Jimmy and rubbing his back.

"It's just so fucking unfair!" Jimmy bites out, staring at the ceiling.

"I know."

"And I'm so angry," he won't look at Tim as he says this, because he's having an easier time keeping himself under some semblance of control by staring at the seat across from him. "And there's nothing, no one to be angry at. There's nothing to hit, and screaming at fate is useless."

_Anything you need. There's nothing to hit. _Tim thinks about that for a second before saying, "I'll fight you if you think it would help."

That got Jimmy to turn and look at Tim, surprised him enough it broke some of the sorrow. "Tim?"

Tim shrugs at Jimmy. He doesn't much like fighting, but if it might help, he's game. "There's a boxing ring in the gym. Having something solid to fight might help."

"I don't want to beat the shit out of you."

"I'm not volunteering to be a punching bag; you'd get bored with that too soon. A real fight would hold your attention and give you a shot to work out a lot of the fight or flight chemicals in your system. Won't help with sad, might help with angry. Ziva'd be game, too, if you wanted to go up against someone who's actually good at hand to hand."

Jimmy thought about that for a moment. "That's part of why she started training again when her father was killed."

"Maybe. Needing to be in good shape for what came after was a lot of it, too. We're made to run, physically run, away from the things that scare us, or turn around and try to kill them. You can't run from this, and you can't fight it, but you can fight me or Ziva or Tony, or hell, I'll run with you if you like. It certainly can't make things worse, and it might make you feel a little better."

Jimmy thought about it. "What are you doing after work?"

"Dinner with Abby, eventually. Tony and Ziva were going to do Shabbat, but they didn't think the case would get wrapped in time, so that's not on for tonight. You want to do something?"

"Yeah."

"Run or fight?"

"Fight."

"Okay."


	148. Too Stupid To Live

There is a term that Tim's come in contact with on several occasions. He's never seen it outside of discussions of writing or characters, so he's not sure how common it is outside the writer/reader community, but right now, as he's fighting with Jimmy, it's springing to mind.

That term is Too Stupid To Live. It's used when the character in a story does something so ridiculously stupid that you, the reader, start rooting for them to die.

There are times when Tim is pretty firmly convinced that he is indeed too stupid to live. Usually, he tries to avoid that, but, well, as the title implies, he's too damn stupid to figure out where the problem is ahead of time.

But, as Jimmy's fist goes crashing into his eye, he's rapidly coming to the conclusion that yes, today he is indeed too damn stupid to live.

The idea of helping Jimmy to fight out his aggression seemed like a really good one until the actual fighting started. And then it dawned on Tim that A: he carries a gun for a reason. B: that reason is to avoid having to get into fist fights. C: this really, really hurts.

Part of the issue is that, while Tim has been trying to avoid hurting Jimmy, and it's true that for the first two or three minutes Jimmy was also trying to avoid hurting him, as the fight got going and the adrenaline got pumping, Jimmy's control vanished.

What's also true is that Jimmy has no technique, can't really see because he's not wearing his glasses, is angry on an existential level, hurts worse than anyone has ever hurt, is high as a kite on endorphins right now, and is way stronger than anyone his size has any right to be.

So, to put it nicely, Tim's getting his ass handed to him on a silver platter.

He's also vaguely aware of the fact that there were probably preparations they could have taken besides just changing into sweats. Like, he's thinking that head gear might have been a good plan. (Very good plan, Jimmy just dodged into one of Tim's punches, and Tim's not entirely sure how much of the blood dripping off his hand is from Jimmy's now split lip or his now split knuckles. This is also when the idea of taping up their hands occurs to him.) But, as he manages to sweep Jimmy's legs out from under him, he's fairly pleased that they were at least smart enough to take their shoes off.

Jimmy gets up slowly, and Tim stands there, open, waiting, breathing hard.

"One more round?" Jimmy asks. They're calling a round fighting until one of them goes down. That was, he thinks, the end of number five.

"As many as you need." And yeah, that's probably stupid too, but fight aside, Jimmy actually seems a little calmer now, well, maybe calmer isn't the right word. Less angry? Yeah, that's probably better. Of course, he's also, like Tim, pretty close to exhausted, too, so he might just not have enough energy to be angry.

Jimmy nods and charges him. Tim managed a decent sidestep and got him in the back with his elbow, but Jimmy was already whipping around and punched him in the ribs.

Part of fighting is that it goes by way faster than you think it should. If he was doing this with a game controller, hitting buttons, he'd be able to do it fast enough to react to Jimmy and think a few moves ahead. But as it is, doing this live means he feels like he's constantly playing catch up.

But the good thing about this going faster than expected is that it's probably less than three minutes later that he's on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the gym, aching from his hair to the soles of his feet, gasping to get his breath back.

Jimmy gives him a hand up, pulling him back into standing up.

"You okay?"

Tim nods, finally able to inhale again.

"More?" he asks Jimmy.

"I'm done."

"Okay."

"Tim," Jimmy's looking at him, eyes wide open and earnest. "Thank you."

"Anytime." And as they head for the locker room, Tim knows he means it. As often as Jimmy needs to do this, he'll be there for.

* * *

They peel off sweat and blood soaked clothing, ready to hit the showers, which right now sounds really, really good to Tim. He looks at himself as he hangs his towel outside the shower stall and moans softly. He's covered in bruises, and since he knows a little something about how this works, he also knows that they're all going to get worse before they get better.

"Tim." Jimmy's in the next stall over, and likely doing a pretty similar inspection of his body.

"Yeah."

"Cold water. Hot'll feel better, but it'll make the bruising and swelling worse."

"Great." He hates cold showers. Hated them before he almost froze to death and absolutely abhors them now. And right this second the idea of putting his extremely tender, hurts to look at wrong body into icy cold water seems like getting to enjoy a sneak preview of hell.

He still cranks the water all the way to the cold side because Jimmy is right. He remembers enough of his wrestling days to know that if you put hot on bruised, battered flesh you end up even more swollen, stiff, and sore.

"Did you tell Abby what we were doing?"

"Told her we were working out. What'd you tell Breena?"

"You were helping me deal with my anger."

"They're going to flip out when they see us." See, this is part of the too stupid to live thing. Coming home to a pregnant wife beaten to a pulp is a bad plan. She's going to take one look at him and freak out.

"Yeah." Jimmy sighs. "She's going to yell at me for being stupid."

Tim nods, steps into the water, shrieks when it hits his skin, because God, icy cold water beating down on bruised skin is every sort of horrible he can think of, and says, "Abby's going to do that, too."

He hears a low moan from Jimmy, so he assumes that means he's stepped into the water as well.

"Did it help?"

"Yeah. It did. I may just be too tired and sore to feel it, but I'm not angry right now."

"Good."

* * *

The human body is a wonderfully designed machine. For example, when it experiences pain, it produces chemicals that fight that pain. Those chemicals are called endorphins. They act as a pain reliever and mild euphoric.

The fact that Tim knows that was part of suggesting fighting to Jimmy. Endorphins make you feel better, they lift your mood, and that effect can last for hours, days even. That's why they suggest you exercise if you're depressed.

However, the pain fighting aspect of endorphins wears off pretty quickly after you stop doing whatever it was that caused the pain in the first place. And while Tim is well aware of how this works when it comes to certain amounts of discomfort he's experienced chasing an especially good orgasm, he wasn't aware of how fast it was going to wear off in relation to a fight.

Basically, he was only a few blocks away from the Navy Yard when his seatbelt started to really hurt his shoulder. Which was not to say everything else about him didn't hurt, too, but as per the Gate Theory of Pain, you really only feel what hurts worst, and the belt pressing into his very tender, very bruised left shoulder really hurt.

He was at a stop light, about ten minutes from home, debating sending Abby a text to warn her that he wasn't in quite the same shape as he had been when she last saw him two hours earlier. He could either send that text, and then have her worried about him from now until he got home, or not send it and shock the hell out of her when he got in the door.

He sent the text.

Two seconds later his phone was ringing. He set it on speaker and put it in the cup holder.

"You got into a fight with Jimmy!? What the hell were you thinking? Jimmy's so fragile right now; how could you possibly start a fight with him?" She continued on that vein for a bit, and he was thinking that texting _got into fight with Jimmy, look pretty bad, home soon, explain then _was yet another sign of being too stupid to live.

"What could he have possibly have said to piss you off so much, especially right now, that would make you fight him?"

She actually paused for breath after that one so he replied, "'I'm so angry, and there's nothing to do with it, nothing to hit, and screaming at fate doesn't help.' So I volunteered to fight him to help get the angry out."

"Oh." Dead silence. "You couldn't have put that in your text?"

"I should have."

"How bad are you?"

"Lots of Advil and ice packs when I get home."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Did it help him?"

"I think so."

"I'll have the frozen peas ready to go."

"Thanks. Should be home in three minutes."


	149. Too Damn Small

Gibbs has a problem.

What's new about that? He usually has several of them at any given time, and some of them come back over and over. But this is the first time he's run into this particular one.

His basement is too damn small.

He started on the Shannon back in '12, when he knew retirement was on the horizon and wanted to get her done in time to sail off shortly after they make him leave NCIS. He figures that'll be the best way to handle those first few months. Get out to sea, away from the job, and just let go, cold turkey, come back a few months later and hopefully find something to do with himself on land.

So, now, as January of '15 is coming to a close, with a year to go until retirement, Shannon is getting pretty close to done. He's got a year to work, and about ten more months' worth of work to do on her.

But he's got two more jobs ahead. He needs to have a Chuppa done by April 4, (3rd really, apparently in Jewish weddings there's some sort of ceremony the night before involving signing the contract, and then the next day there's the ceremony he thinks of as a wedding.) and while McSciuto might not be due until July, he wants the crib done by the beginning of May. On the off chance she...it... he shakes his head, hell she, ends up coming early, she'll need a place to sleep.

So, the question is: try and finish Shannon up fast, move his shop upstairs, or try to squeeze three projects into a space that was already tight for one...

The Chuppa is primarily lattice work. It's got to be light, beautiful, flexible, and, because it's got to get from his place to the park where they're having the ceremony, collapsible. But it's also got to be strong enough to hold all of the flowers, vines, and lacy fabric that'll get draped around it. Once he's got all of the pieces cut, he can get them screwed together upstairs. But it'll be a two-step finishing process. The real finishing will happen before he gets all the pieces assembled, but he'll need to do a good, solid post assembly clean up as well, and the basement is where he's got his ventilation system for dealing with the dust that goes with that.

Then there's the crib. That'll require real joinery, serious planing, every piece has to be straight and square, and he's sure as hell going to do some carving on it, though he's not entirely certain what.

Since Tim and Abby are talking about a forest theme for the nursery, he knows one thing, the legs of the crib are going to be unshaped trees. He'll take the bark off, mostly because he knows little kids are rough on furniture and it'll get knocked off if he leaves it on. He wants the look of natural wood growing up from the floor. And there'll have to be a space on the back for the picture Abby wants to paint, but beyond that, he doesn't have a set idea, yet.

He's been debating putting off any real design work on the crib for finding out if McSciuto is a girl or boy. Everyone thinks she's a girl. Gibbs does, too. And if he's designing for a little girl, that'll make some of this easier. But at the same time, they don't know yet, won't until the beginning of April, and he's fairly certain this crib is not only going to be used by one child.

'Course, they have more than one kid, he can make more than one crib. And if they are going to have more than one, those kids are going to have to be pretty close together. Abby might look the same age Tim is, but Gibbs knows she's not. So, anyway, McSciuto might still be in this crib when Baby B shows up.

Gibbs is feeling like he's just talked himself into doing a girl's crib, until he once again remembers that they don't actually know that McSciuto is a girl.

Damn it. Okay, he can pick out the wood. That's a start. And then he can move onto the Chuppa. By the time that's done, they'll know for sure if she's a girl or boy, and then he can go from there.

He's thinking walnut for the slats, dark, almost black stain, and then the cross pieces can be maple, almost white. He sketches that out, quickly, looks at it with the natural tree legs and crumples it up. That didn't look right at all. He spends a few hours fooling around with different ideas, not really liking anything he was coming up with, besides the idea that some sort of small dragon should be crawling up one of the legs, face perched on the top, looking into the crib. He likes that idea a whole lot.

So he puts those sketches aside, and goes to work on the Chuppa.

The Chuppa's easier. That should be oak, strong, solid, slow-growing, but long-lived. He can see the pieces in his mind, some woven together, some on small hinges so they can collapse. He glances over to his band saw, knowing he's going to be ripping a whole lot of wood soon.

Which once again brings him to the problem of not having enough room. The band saw is packed up in the corner, because the Shannon is taking up most of the space.

He stands up, places a hand on her hull. That part is done. Normally his next step would be building the interior, followed by the deck. But if he puts the deck on her first, or at least something to keep the rain out and the hull intact, he can move her out, do his current projects, and move her back in.

And, if he's willing to let go of the secret of how his boats get out of the basement, Tim and Tony will help him do it, which would speed things up even further and make getting her back into the basement once he's done with the Chuppa and the crib easier.

Gibbs checks his watch. It's seventeen thirty on Saturday. So, grab a little food, then come back down here and get four hours of work done. They're on call this weekend, and he's got a feeling something is going to happen, so he wants to get to bed earlier rather than later.

His plan set, and one more problem checked off the list, Gibbs headed up to the kitchen.


	150. Call Out

Sunday morning, Gibbs eased the door to the McGee house open. It's unlocked, and right now he was wishing those two hadn't decided to mimic him on that. Tim and Abby's cell phones are both on the little table near the door, and he can see Tim's showing the four calls they've given him.

Gun out, he scans the downstairs, looking right and left for signs of trouble, but he's not seeing anything. Gibbs holsters his gun. He's rapidly coming to the conclusion that phone on the front table, and Tim and Abby upstairs in bed probably means Tim didn't hear the call.

_Now what?_ Part of him just wants to find a convenient chunk of wall and pound on it until Tim shows up. Part of him knows that if Tim's sleeping, Abby is too, and while she will have to show up at the lab, she doesn't need to get there for at least three hours, and he doesn't want to cut into her sleep. She's tired enough as is without him waking her up early.

They're all tired. He doesn't think anyone on his team has slept well for almost two weeks now. But the rest of the team is still holding themselves together pretty well because they don't have tsunami sized waves of hormones sloshing around their systems.

Tired, pregnant, mood-swingy Abby sobbing in her lab because something reminded her of Jonathon is something he'd really prefer to avoid.

Which means he needs to go upstairs.

To their bedroom. With them in it. I.E. the last place on earth he wants to be at this particular moment in time.

_Great._

He heads up quietly. Last thing he wants to do is get shot by Tim because he thinks the footfalls on his steps are a burglar. Gibbs was up there right before the wedding, so he knows which room is theirs. Top of the steps all the way down the hall on the right.

The door is open. Makes sense, not much reason to close it when it's just the two of you.

He pokes his head in fast, if too much of Abby is visible, he's going back downstairs, getting Tim's phone, tossing it in the room, and then calling.

But they're under the blanket, spooned together, Tim on the outside, wrapped around her, their legs tangled together.

He eases in quietly and pokes what he's hoping is Tim's foot.

Tim jerks, looks around fast, sees Gibbs and relaxes, though Gibbs tenses up when his brain realizes what he's seeing on Tim.

"What are you doing in my bedroom?" he asks quietly, sounding confused.

"Call out. You didn't answer your phone."

Tim rubs his face and then winces when he does it. "Okay, I'm up."

Gibbs stands there, waiting, eyes wide, wondering what the hell happened to Tim. Tim doesn't move. This last for about thirty seconds before Tim says, still quietly, "Remember that peep show comment from Lejeune?" Gibbs turns and heads out of their room. He's halfway out the door when Tim adds, "Put some coffee on when you're down there."

Gibbs nods and heads downstairs, shaking his head. Why it is out of all his team members only Kate could be relied on to wear pajamas?

As he's rummaging around in their kitchen, he wonders why Tim's got a black eye and some really ugly fresh bruises on his shoulders, arms, and chest. He's really hoping Tim didn't flip out and beat the hell out of someone, because judging by how bad he's looking, that someone is really likely to press charges.

But that can't be it, because there's no way Abby wouldn't have called him if something like that had happened. And for that matter, he really doubts Tim wouldn't have called him if that had been up.

No way to know now, so he lets it go, and finds the coffee, scoffs at the decaf in his hands, there's no point to coffee if it's decaf, and then sets up Tim's machine to brew.

Seven minutes later, Tim is downstairs, dressed, shaved, and except for the black-eye, looking fairly professional. His hair's a bit messier than normal, but not unreasonable. He takes the coffee from Gibbs, sucking it down fast.

"Sorry, Jethro, looks like we can't hear the phone from the upstairs. It'll go on my dresser from now on."

Gibbs nods.

"What are we called out for?"

"Dead Marine outside of Quantico."

Tim grabs a bagel, writes a quick note for Abby on the whiteboard on the fridge, and says, "Let's go."

* * *

They're in the car when Tim says, "Thanks for not waking her up."

Gibbs nods. "Do I want to know how bad the other guy looks?"

"Eh?"

_Really, you're gonna play dumb with me?_ Gibbs' look said.

"Jimmy'll be fine."

That shocks Gibbs badly enough that he pulls the car over, stops it, and turns toward Tim. "You got into a fight with Palmer? What the hell happened?"

Tim holds up a placating hand. "Nothing like that. He was telling me about how angry he was, and how there was nothing to be angry at, nothing to hit."

"So you volunteered to let him hit you?" Gibbs is so shocked he's sounding almost flustered. "I know you don't spend a lot of time in the gym, but the large bags hanging from the ceiling are there so people can hit them!"

Tim rolls his eyes. "He'd get bored with a punching bag, or his mind would wander because it wouldn't hold his attention. He needed something to get himself out of his head. Actually fighting does that. Otherwise, I would have suggested using a punching bag, I mean, this isn't precisely comfortable, and getting like this was a hell of a lot less comfortable."

Gibbs stares at him, and Tim's not sure if that look is admiration for stepping up for his friend or scorn for being so stupid about it. He does know that once he got Abby calmed down, which took some doing, (having told her he was in bad shape, and her actually seeing him were two very different things) and explained (again) what had happened (and why) she had an awfully similar look on her face.

"What do you do when you're really angry, Jethro? One of three things, right? Drink, fuck, or fight. He can't drink, not enough. Diabetes means getting more than buzzed is a bad plan for him. Even if he felt like it, and I really doubt he does, fucking's out for at least the next two-three weeks, maybe longer. But I could fight with him. So we went six rounds, and by the time we were done a lot of his anger was burned off. Maybe not the best way to handle it, but we'll both heal up, and at least as of Friday night, he seemed to be doing a little better."

Gibbs takes Tim's left hand and turns it so he can see how bad he hurt himself, purple-green bruises decorated split knuckles. "No gloves?"

"This isn't something either of us ever does. We don't have gloves. And no, we didn't have tape, either. Or face gear."

"You can see okay out of that eye?"

"I'm fine. Just sore."

"Jimmy's okay?"

"The only things you can see are the split lip and his hands."

"You split his lip?"

Tim's really tempted to roll his eyes again. "I wasn't trying to. I'm not Ziva. This isn't something I'm very good at. I meant to get his shoulder, he dodged into my hand, and I couldn't pull it in time. I think that's how he got my eye, too. We weren't trying to hurt each other. He just needed someone to fight it out with, so I did it."

Gibbs nods at that. "You've been a good friend to Jimmy. And now I'm going to be a good dad, to both of you. Every Sunday from now until your daughter is on the outside, both of you are spending an hour training with me. It's been eight years since I've seen you in the gym for any combat training, and if you're accidently splitting Jimmy's lip, you're too rusty. If he's accidentally hitting you in the eye, same thing."

"Errr…" Ending up with even less free time was not how Tim had hoped this would work out.

"Both of you need to be in good enough shape to put the Fear of Dad into future boyfriends, so training starts on Sunday. And you're spending an hour with him at the range every week until he's as good as you are with a pistol."

"Ever since he got kidnapped, he hasn't wanted to have anything to do with a real gun."

"He might feel differently about it now. And even if he doesn't, he still needs to know how to use one."

Tim shrugs, and winces, his ribs are pretty sore and that motion hurts. "Could we maybe start this the Sunday after next, when Jimmy and I won't still be eating handfuls of Advil every four hours?"

Gibbs shakes his head. "I'll take it easy on you the first week."

"Great."

* * *

"McGee, are you all right?"

"What on earth happened to you!" Ziva sounded really concerned, while Tony sounded shocked.

"I'm fine." Which was as far as he got before Jimmy and Ducky showed up with the gurney.

"Palmer did you…" Tony was probably going to ask something like, 'see what happened to McGee,' but he turned to look at Jimmy, saw the split lip, his chin and jaw had bruised up to go with it, as well as bruised hands and said, "Did both of you go out, get drunk, and beat the hell out of someone at a bar?"

"No, Tony, they didn't." Ziva walked over to Jimmy, stared at the bruises on his face, her finger just ghosting over it. "That was done by someone's left hand." And then went to Tim and stared at his eye, looking like she knew exactly how tall the person who hit him was just from the bruise. "Do you want to explain this?"

Tim shrugged and looked to Jimmy, his expression letting Jimmy know that he'll keep this as private as Jimmy wants. (Gibbs excepted. Tim's personal rule number one means Gibbs is always excepted.)

Jimmy shrugged, too. "Tim let me fight out my anger. I needed it. He was there. Do you need more than that?"

"Nope," Tony said very quickly. He knows that expression, knows that tone of voice, and knows that's a man who doesn't want to get into whatever it is.

Ziva nodded at him. "If you ever need it, I am here, too."

Jimmy closed his eyes and manages a bit of a smile for her. "Thanks, but Ziva, I can't hit you. I know you're tough. I know you're a better fighter than I am. I know you can kill a man with a bar of soap. But you're still a girl, and I can't hit you."

She smiled at him, hoping a little gentle kidding goes over well. "Jimmy, the reason you cannot hit me is because I'm too fast for you."

"That too."

"Seriously, though. I'm good enough at this neither of us will get hurt, and you'll still get a good work out." She stepped closer to him, and said quietly, "And if you do need to hit, to land the punches, and to take them in return, I know how to do that and not visibly harm you, and how to not let you hit anything important. Neither you nor McGee can afford to damage your hands or eyes."

"Thanks." He hugged Ziva quickly before hurrying after Ducky.


	151. Bootcamp

Bootcamp with Gibbs was never Tim's favorite thing. Granted, a huge part of not loving this is that he's always been worse at it than anyone around him. He was fairly used to being less physically adept than the guys around him, but having Kate kick his ass right in front of the new boss he desperately wanted to impress hurt on a whole lot of different levels.

And honestly, it never got much better than that.

It's not even that he's terrible at this. He's a cop, was raised by a Navy Captain who was bound and determined that he'd be able to throw a decent punch, and was on the wrestling team in high school. It's not like he can't fight. He's competent.

But all the guys around him have always been way better than competent.

And, sure, it's not PC, but the fact that Kate and Ziva (And probably Abby, though he's never gone up against her, and is perfectly happy to keep it that way.) were/are better than him was a hit to his pride, too. He was eight inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than Kate, sheer mass alone meant he should have won that fight, and she still pinned him.

So for him, Bootcamp was mostly a pile of not fun with a heaping side of embarrassment. Which is why eight years ago when Gibbs stopped demanding it, he stopped doing it.

Jimmy doesn't look like he's relishing this, either. From everything he knows about Jimmy, having his hands wrapped in tape in preparation for learning how to be more effective at beating on someone isn't his idea of fun at all.

But it's Sunday afternoon, and they're both in the NCIS gym, standing in front of Gibbs, who is grinning and looks like he's intending to really enjoy this.

And well, at least one of them should, right?

* * *

"The thing you have to keep in mind is that it is your job to keep the boys in line." Gibbs says as he tapes Jimmy's right hand. "Your wives will say things like, 'He's so cute,' or 'He's only six,'" That got both Tim and Jimmy staring at him in horror. "I'm not telling you to beat up the six-year-old who has a crush on your little girl, but it is your job to intimidate any boy who gets near her to the point where he knows in his bones that you are the number one male in the family and you will personally kill him if he ever hurts your girl."

Yeah, Gibbs had mentioned putting the Fear of Dad into future boyfriends, but this, both from a this-is-what-we're-doing perspective, and also from a this-is-the-longest-speech-Jimmy's-ever-heard-out- of-him perspective, is completely unexpected.

"Your job is to make sure he treats your girl like a princess and feels like earning your respect is the equivalent of winning an Olympic gold medal."

Jimmy and Tim think about that. That's a plan they can get behind.

Jimmy adds, "That's where Ed screwed up. Sure, he could kill me and get rid of my body really easy, but I couldn't care less if I ever earn his respect."

Gibbs nods at that. "It's a lot harder to do if you're a jerk."

Tim did not actually say, 'takes one to know one,' but Gibbs catches his look and says, "I'm a bastard, not a jerk. There is a difference."

"And that would be?" Tim asks.

"I've got very high standards, but you met them and won the medal. Jimmy can try from now until the end of the earth, and Ed'll just keep raising his standards because he's determined not to approve of Jimmy."

"That sound about right," Jimmy said.

"One day a man will show up, and he will deserve your respect, and he will be worth your little girl, which means you stop being her number one man. Ed's not willing to let that go. So he'll keep being a jerk to you."

Gibbs looks at Jimmy's hands and nods, they're properly taped up. He tilts his head a little, and Tim steps up, holding out his left hand to get it taped.

Tim realized something as Gibbs started taping up his hands. "This isn't just about our families, is it?"

Gibbs shook his head. "This time next year, Autopsy'll be yours, Palmer. Can't imagine it'll be all that much later that you'll be in charge of Cybercrime, Tim. No later than the end of '16 you'll both have guys calling you Boss or Doctor. Making them want to win your respect is important, too."

"And we're going to learn how to do that by fighting with you?" Jimmy asks, not seeming to think this is the most effective technique for that.

"Nope. Both of you already know how you're going to be leaders. This is just… the stuff your dads should be passing on to you about how to be a dad. And some of those guys who'll be calling you Boss, they're going to look at you like a dad, at least, if you're doing the job right."

"That's a terrifying thought." Jimmy shook his head.

"Not right away, but you'll both be in those jobs for a long time." Gibbs flashed them his amused smile. "Get some gray in your hair, and they'll start looking up to you."

"So you mean any day now?" Jimmy asks, dryly, the first of his gray hairs showed up last week and brought a few buddies.

"You're gonna need a whole lot more than the ten gray hairs you've got, Palmer. But yeah. When Ducky leaves, you'll get an assistant, and he'll be, what? Twenty-four? Gonna look like a baby to you."

"We were both twenty-four when we started here," Tim adds.

And Gibbs just nods, _babies_ clearly on his face. "You're hands are done, too. Okay, Palmer, you can punch hard. You left enough bruises on Tim to prove that. But he told me you weren't aiming for his eye when you hit it."

Jimmy nods.

"You're with me. Tim, see that punching bag?"

Tim nods.

"Beat the hell out of it." Tim headed off to do just that. The sound of fists, elbows, and knees slamming into canvas punctuated the rest of Jimmy's conversation with Gibbs.

"What are we going to do?"

Gibbs headed over to his bag and found his pads. Then he took out some duct tape and put an X on the top of the pad. "I'm gonna move. You're gonna hit the X. And we're gonna keep doing it until both of you can hit the X no matter how fast I'm moving."

"What if I hit you?"

Gibbs look would be best described as _if you hit me, Palmer, it's time to bury me because I'm already dead_, but he's polite enough to not say that out loud. Instead he says, "Not getting hit is my job." He got into position, started circling the pad a bit, and Palmer whaled on it, hitting both nowhere even remotely near the X and hard enough that he staggered Gibbs.

Gibbs stepped back and straightened up, shaking his head slightly, amazed at how much force Jimmy had just nailed him with. "Stop. Precision, Palmer. Hit the X. Do it as soft and slow as you need to to hit the X. When you swap with Tim and take your turn on the punching bag, then you can hit hard. Again."

He started moving again, and this time Jimmy spent a good thirty seconds just tracking the motion with his eyes, and then hit, not too hard, but did manage to get the X dead on.

"Good. Keep it up." After about fifteen minutes where Jimmy slowed down to the point where he could land seven out of ten shots, Gibbs had him switch to his left hand, and started, at an even slower speed, all over again.

Several thoughts went through Gibbs mind while he was doing this. First of all, Tim was right, Jimmy did, and still does, need to fight it out. There's a ton of anger in there, and it needs to go somewhere. Gibbs knows all about that and is very glad that Tim's offering Jimmy a way to do it that isn't too self-destructive. He hopes hitting the range will be good for Jimmy, too. Secondly, Jimmy's a whole lot stronger than Gibbs thought he was. He tends to think of Palmer as a goofy, skinny kid, but there's a real man in there with some very serious strength. You could fill an especially small thimble with what Gibbs knows about yoga (and still have plenty of room left over), but if that's all the exercise Palmer gets, it must be really good for upper body development. Thirdly, no one ever taught Jimmy how to fight. Yeah, he can make a fist and throw a punch, but the part of the fight where his brain gets involved was never addressed. He's appallingly bad a figuring out where Gibbs is going to move next, and has a tendency to close his eyes right before his fist hits.

When Jimmy and Tim swap, Gibbs feels like kicking himself for not doing this with Tim more often. Eight years ago when it became clear that Tim was better with a handgun than anyone but Ziva, and that Ziva was going to be sticking around, filling the role of their combat specialist, Gibbs stopped making Tim hit the gym.

There just didn't seem to be much use to it. He always had a gun on him, Tony or Ziva always went out with him, and worst came to worst, eight years ago, he was good enough that he wouldn't get killed if he had to depend on his fists.

He's not anymore.

Tim's brain knows how to fight. Gibbs can see from the way he watches the X that he knows how to track it and how to anticipate where it'll go. He knows to hit for where it will be instead of where it is. (In fact, if he was doing this with a pistol, Tim wouldn't just be able to hit the X, he'd be able to shoot off each of Gibbs' fingers.) What he can't seem to do is make his fist land where he wants it to. He's reliably within four inches of the X, but rarely nails it. Which isn't a problem if he was trying to hit a guy in the chest or stomach, but does mean he can completely miss someone if he's aiming for his head.

Tim's also, and this confuses Gibbs, equally bad with his left or right hand.

He decides to wrap it up by having them spar with each other, wanting to see how they really fight. It occurs to him as they're sort of limply flailing around with each other that if he's going to have them do this, that starting off with it, instead of putting it at the end when they've been working hard for an hour, is a good plan.

It also occurs to him that Palmer needs contacts, because part of the reason he's got no control when he spars is because he can't see.

When they wrap up, Gibbs is developing plans for next week, and looking forward to it.


	152. Treats

"Am I imagining it, or is he talking a whole lot more?" Jimmy asks Tim as they get out of the showers.

"He's talking more. I mean, he does talk when he's trying to teach you something, but he's also talking more in general."

"I think that's the most I've ever heard him say."

Tim nods, beyond their one on one conversations that's definitely one of the longest stretches of Gibbs talking he can remember.

"Heading home after this?" he asks as he gets dressed.

"Yeah, want to get back to my girls." Jimmy's been spending more time closer to home, wanting to keep Breena and Molly near, and Tim doesn't blame him at all for that. "You?" he asks as he slips on his shoes.

"Groceries. It's Abby's bowling day, so she's out 'til dinner."

When they get out of the locker room, Gibbs is waiting for them, two cups in hand. He hands one to each of them and says to Jimmy, "You did good, Palmer. Next week you're gonna do better."

"Thanks." Jimmy smiles briefly at the praise.

Tim stands there, amazed that Gibbs is saying that to him. He and Ziva sorted through rotting vomit to find a bullet and got less than that. Then he sees the look Gibbs is giving Jimmy and realizes that Gibbs really meant it when he said he was going to be a good Dad for both of them, and right now, Jimmy needs kid gloves and petting, and Gibbs is willing to do it.

Gibbs nods. "Between now and then, get some contacts, and wear them next week. I want you to be able to see what you're aiming at."

"Okay." Jimmy heads off, sipping his drink.

Tim takes a sip of his, expecting coffee, and very surprised to find it's hot chocolate. His eyebrows shoot up. Hot chocolate is a treat; what he rewards himself with when he's done a good job and it's cold out.

"You did good, too." Though Tim understands Gibbs is talking about taking care of Jimmy rather than fighting, because honestly, that was pretty sad.

"Thanks."

Gibbs heads them to one of the tables in the café area. "And you'll do better next week, too. Tell me about Jimmy. What does he like?"

"You've got to narrow that down some, because it's a really long list."

"Got you hot chocolate. Got him coffee because I don't know what he considers a treat."

"When it's cold: one half coffee, one half hot milk, and a shot of sugar free hazelnut or almond syrup. Chai with no sugar is also always a good choice for him. When it's hot: seltzer, ice, sugar free vanilla syrup."

"Like a cream soda?"

"Pretty much. Breena makes it for him, uses vanilla beans and stevia. It's really good. But anywhere with a half decent coffee bar should be able to make one up."

"Where's his dad?" It's true that Gibbs hasn't paid all that much attention to Palmer over the years, but he did notice his dad wasn't at his wedding, Molly's christening, or Jon's funeral.

"Dead. Ten years now."

"Decent guy?"

"Enough. Jimmy loved him. Like Jimmy he had diabetes, but unlike Jimmy he didn't take care of himself and was dead at fifty-two. I know Jimmy holds that against him. Didn't love them enough to exercise or lay off the sugar."

Gibbs nods, getting a better idea of who Jimmy is and why he's in such good shape. "Brothers, sisters?" Gibbs had seen Jimmy's mom a few times, so she was obviously still part of his life.

"Younger brother, he lives in Tokyo. Gets back here once a blue moon."

"He and Breena gonna make it?" Yeah, it's early on, but in Gibbs' experience how you handle the first few weeks is a pretty good predictor of how the rest of mourning is going to go.

"I think so. They've been doing really well on pulling together."

"Married by blood."

That's more metaphorical than Tim ever expects Gibbs to be, but that wraps it up nicely. "Yeah."

"You're doing a good job with him, but if he gets in deeper than you can help, starts drinking or chasing pain, you let me know."

"I will."

"Good. We're not gonna let him fall."


	153. Fathers and Sons

Gibbs is, in the immortal words of whoever Tony was quoting on Friday, "Too old for this shit."

And old was the one thing Gibbs never really thought he'd be.

Though maybe 'old' isn't precisely the problem. He doesn't mind the wrinkles or the gray hair. (Though needing glasses, now for both up close and long distance, bugs the hell out of him.)

Out of shape may be more precise.

Gibbs doesn't pay all that much attention to his body. He feeds it when it gets hungry. Lays it down to sleep when it gets too tired (gives it coffee the rest of the time.) Puts his glasses on when he can't see. Washes it every day and "clears out the pipes" as needed. And that covers most of his bases.

In fact, unless he's got a girlfriend (which is the only time he does pay any attention to his body, well, what she's doing to it), his body is just this thing that moves him around from place to place, a lot like his car, and honestly, he pays more attention to the car.

Another thing that's true is that, unless, once again, we're talking about a girlfriend, he also doesn't pay all that much attention to other people's bodies, either. Sure, faces he watches with a whole lot of intensity, but, below the neck he just glances at to see if anything interesting is going on, and if nothing is, he ignores it.

This is triply true when it comes to male bodies.

Still there are certain things he expects his body to do, or well, be, and one of those things is be in better shape than Tim. But, as he noticed when sparring with the boys, somewhere along the line Tim lost a ton of weight and gained some muscles. (He had sort of vaguely noticed Tim was smaller, just because he doesn't pay attention to men's bodies doesn't mean he's blind. But he hadn't realized Tim had lost that much weight, let alone toned up.) Sure, he's not going to pass for a Marine anytime soon, but he's actually looking pretty good.

Which is causing Gibbs to look at himself in the bathroom mirror and notice posture, haircut, and attitude aside, he's also not going to pass for a Marine anytime soon.

In fact, he's looking a whole lot like what he is, a fifty-six year old cop who doesn't eat all that well, has twenty-five more pounds around his middle than he needs, and has let the younger members of his team handle running the perps down for the last five years.

And that's not acceptable, at all.

He's going to have grandkids to chase after soon, so he can't be puffing away, out of shape. And Tim and Palmer need someone to show them how this is done.

Okay, they don't, not really. Palmer's already good at this, and from everything he's seen of Tim with Molly, Tim's good at it, too.

But that still doesn't mean he can lay down on the job. As Abby said to him, he's the patriarch of their clan, and sure, one day he'll pass that over to Tony and move into Ducky's role of wiseman, but it's not nearly time for that, yet. And if leading the clan is his job, then he's got to be able to lead, no matter what that might mean, and with his particular clan, charging into battle is a definite possibility. So, first thing in the morning he's hitting the gym, and he's going to keep hitting it until he can find his abs again.

It's not that Gibbs is a particularly introspective man, which also isn't precisely true. He doesn't want to be a particularly introspective man, and a lot of the work he does is about not having to be introspective. If he's building, working a case, or drinking, he doesn't have to spend nearly as much time with his thoughts.

But right now, as he's slipping into his pajamas (sweat pants, Marines t-shirt) he's willing to let himself think, especially about this odd little family he's collected over the years.

It's funny, even with years in the Corp, even with decades as a cop, he never really expected to have sons. From the day Shannon told him she was pregnant, he knew he was going to be a dad to girls. And so, his girls were easy. He fell into the role of Abby and Ziva's dad without even really having to think about it. One day they were strangers, the next he had daughters again. Of course, he knows how (wants, needs) to be a dad to girls. Be there. Be useful. Try and be an example of the sort of man you want them to marry (respectful, honest, decent, not fooling around on them). Keep the bad guys away. Encourage the good ones. But mostly, be there.

With as different as Abby and Ziva are, that kept him pretty busy. Being there for Ziva is an entirely different set of skills than being there for Abby. But even with as different as they are, he felt like he had a good handle on what he was doing.

Sons on the other hand…

Sons started with Tony. Sure, he'd been a mentor and big brother before, but Tony needed a Dad, and Tony was the first guy he was willing to step up and do it for. And he's honest enough with himself to see that it's also ending with Tony. Tony's finished growing up. The clown prince of the frat boys is long dead. And while it's true that Tony will always love him, and that he'll love Tony, they're shifting from father and son to friends and equals. How'd Abby put it? He's Tony's Ducky?

Yeah, it's heading there. Though when he thinks about it, there's always been a certain reserve between him and Ducky. Partly because they've always been equals. Partly because so many years went by where he didn't let Ducky in. For almost a decade Ducky knew all about Gibbs' present, but nothing about his past.

Really, he's becoming Tony's Mike. There was never that space between him and Mike. And he likes that idea. Tony needs a Mike, and older, wiser friend who will slap him upside the head when he needs it, but mostly a man who will be there with him to enjoy the good times and make the bad ones more bearable.

Besides, Tony's got a dad. Senior's been stepping up his dad game over the last few years, becoming the man Tony needs in his life, which Gibbs entirely approves of. Both from the fact that the hole Senior cut into Tony's soul when he ran away from him after his mother died is slowly healing up, and from the fact that being there for his son is something Senior needs to do to be a good man, as well.

Especially with a marriage, and likely, kids, in the not wildly distant future, Tony probably needs all the good men he can get surrounding him, and right now, Gibbs is pretty satisfied on that front.

Thinking of the good men in Tony's life brought him to the son he wasn't expecting.

That Tim would be Abby's husband he's known for… about a decade. When they broke up, he figured it was done. When year after year went by with neither of them falling for anyone else, he realized what they didn't: there wasn't going to be anyone else for either of them. So, he was on board with the idea that Tim would be Abby's husband. Eventually he'd pass the role of her number one man to Tim. But Tim was always so self-contained the idea that ever be closer to Tim than he was to Shannon's dad: warm, friendly, respectful, was something he didn't expect.

Honestly, he never expected to have this close of a relationship with any guy. Mike, Ducky, Tony, they all play by the rules. Close, soft, warm, huggy-type things happen with girls. That's why there are girls in the world, because a man needs someone to do that sort of thing with. The occasional affectionate hair ruffling and good job, usually steeped in humor, with very rare hugs, is how guys who love each other behave in the world as Gibbs understands it.

Talking about feelings is something else for girls. Guys don't do that, not with each other. He's had hundreds of chats with Tony over the years, and they've mastered the art of not actually saying what they're feeling, but still getting the basic idea across.

But Tim didn't play by those rules. Tim finally, after ten years, showed up in his basement to talk and the first thing he did was say, "I love Abby," followed by, "Now tell me what love means to you."

So, Gibbs tried to answer him, because he understood that what Tim meant by that was I-intend-to-marry-Abby-and-I'm-in-research-mode, but trying to put words to those ideas, let alone for another guy, felt really weird.

Having Tim tell him that he considered him to be his dad shortly thereafter was even more confusing. Because Gibbs hadn't been doing much in the way of being a dad for Tim, and if Tim's standards for dad-like behavior were that low, something was seriously wrong.

Until he started dating Abby again, Gibbs had never done anything dad-like for Tim. He'd been a great boss and a good mentor, set high standards, taught him everything he knew about being a good cop, slapped him when he needed it, petted Tim when he went above and beyond the call, but they'd never watched a game together, (Hell, he didn't even know until Tony told him about the Beaver thing that Tim even liked any sport, let alone that he was a college football fan.) or hung out over dinner, or for that matter had a real conversation that wasn't work related.

It left Gibbs feeling flatfooted, and suddenly very curious about Tim's dad. He'd been vaguely aware of John McGee. He knew he was still alive. He knew Tim didn't spend Christmas with his family, but he also knew they weren't in DC or the surrounding area. Knew from overhearing Tony talk about him that the man was apparently full of physical courage. Knew from overhearing Tim that he was the kind of man who had no problem telling a seven-year-old the birthday card he made wasn't good enough. He knew they went seven years without speaking. And knew that he had to be a damn good Naval officer, both at politics and at running a ship, to make Admiral.

He didn't know Tim's parents were divorced. He didn't know John had been on a ship for probably seventy percent of Tim's childhood. He found that out by reading through John's file.

And he didn't know until seeing John look at Tim that whatever it was John wanted in a son, Tim wasn't it.

And, while there had been plenty of times where he wanted to slap Senior upside the back of the head for being an idiot, he was really surprised by how intensely he wanted to drag John out of that ship and beat the ever-living shit out of him for not respecting Tim.

Gibbs saw the look on John's face, saw the distain, and felt his hand clench. If ever a man deserved respect, it was Tim.

In the forty years Gibbs has been a Marine or cop, he's never seen anyone less naturally adept at any skill set go on to master one as thoroughly as Tim did with being a cop. When he got Tim transferred to his team, he never expected him to be anything other than handy with a computer. He knew he needed a geek to do the job, constantly bugging Abby to do the computer work wasn't a long-term solution, and he knew McGee would be good at it. He never, ever thought Tim would make a good field agent. And the fact that Tim proved him wrong won Gibbs' respect.

He was even more surprised by how intensely possessive he felt of Tim after seeing how John treated him. How that one day made Gibbs realize that Tim wasn't just his future son-in-law, but his son.

And thus, the accidental son, the man who earned his respect, who earned the right to say to him, "I am going to marry your daughter." (And it's true that Gibbs appreciates that Tim didn't ask permission. He told him he was going to marry Abby, proving he had gained the strength to be her husband. Just like he appreciates that Tony asked, proving he had gained the wisdom to be hers.) The man who earned the right to say to him, "Talk to me, tell me how you feel," and get an answer.

And while Tim may not play by the rules, at least he appears to know what they are. Gibbs has never had any sense that Jimmy's ever been aware of them.

He watches the two of them, and they put him in mind of Kelly and Maddie, and like with them, he realizes that you end up adopting your kid's best friends. That the people they love become your loves. (It hits him that this is how he got Tim in the first place. He was Abby's pet, and so, when he needed a geek to put on his team, he picked Tim instead of calling down to the new Cybercrime department for one of their guys.)

And, while it's painfully obvious that Tim wants a dad, it's also very obvious that right now, Jimmy needs one. Like Tony, Jimmy needs all the good men around him he can get. And Gibbs, who's walked this road, intends to be one of them.

So, the third son, son of sorrows, the one who doesn't know he's been adopted, yet.

But he will.

And like with Tim, he'll probably end up talking about feelings, and probably handing out hugs, and it's going to be weird, but… he's kind of looking forward to it.

One last thought occurred to Gibbs before he fell asleep, if he had been there from the day they were born, it probably wouldn't feel weird to talk with them about how they're feeling or hug them when they're hurting. Because a dad does that for his kids, even if they are boys.


	154. The Good Day

It was a really good day.

Tim had been comfortably asleep, warm, snuggled up with Abby, feeling decently rested because they'd gotten to bed fairly early the night before. And as he was laying there, mostly asleep and very happy to be that way, he slowly started to wake up to the feeling of Abby rubbing against him.

Rubbing against him in a very determined sort of way. In a your-morning-erection-is-very-convienently-located -and-I-intend-to-take-advantage-of-it sort of way.

Best he could remember the last time that had happened, last time she'd been awake before him to even think about doing this was their honeymoon.

And Tim wholeheartedly agreed that doing this was a very good idea.

"Good morning, Mrs. McGee." He figures that'll get old eventually, but so far calling her that is still a kick.

"Good morning." She shifted a little, hitching her leg over his, giving him a little help on the angle with her hand, and he moaned as he slipped into hot and wet and glorious.

"God, baby, that's a great way to wake up."

"Thought you'd like it."

"You're welcome to wake me up like this whenever you want." He punctuated that with a slow, gentle thrust, as his hand found her breast. "You liking it, too?"

She arched back. "Oh yeah, we're good."

* * *

They caught a case, but it wasn't a murder.

Paperwork days are boring. Murder cases aren't boring, but they are depressing. (Especially right now.)

Today's case, a kidnapping, is usually the worst, but today's case is also special.

Staff Sargeant Elana Bonsom was being sent to Afghanistan next week. Her daughter, Mandy, was being sent to live with her grandparents, in Montana. Her father, Dan Rogrique, Elana's ex, had taken the girl. And left a note saying he'd taken her.

So, while the hunt was on, there was significantly less urgency than usual because the one thing they aren't afraid of is Mandy getting killed.

Sure, dealing with Elana begging to get her daughter back was unpleasant.

And then it got worse when they finally caught Dan with Mandy, (Idiot had his phone on and on him. Grabbing them took an hour and a half, one minute of which was spent pinging his phone, eighty-nine of which were spent driving to their location.) and got his side of it, namely he's got joint custody with Elana, but she won't let him have their daughter for the year-long deployment and was instead sending her to Montana, where her parents live, where he can't afford to go, rather than let her live with him.

It got even more complicated when the different lawyers showed up, Dan's yelling about how he was being denied access to his child, Elana's claiming he was an unfit parent because he kidnapped her, along with Child and Family Services who didn't want either of those two anywhere near Mandy.

So, yeah, by the end of it, Gibbs was ready to smack everyone involved in the case upside the head. But no one was dead. No one was going to be dead. And it hadn't been boring.

* * *

Tim and Tony cut out early. The sound of lawyers squabbling in the conference room a screechy soundtrack for heading for the elevator.

Tim had expected Tony to hit the button for the ground floor, but he stabbed the one that took them to Autopsy instead.

"We've got the afternoon free, let's grab Jimmy and get you two measured for wedding tuxes."

"Don't you need an appointment for that?"

"Made one at lunch when it looked like this was going to get wrapped fast."

"Okay."

They got down there a few seconds later, and found Jimmy and Ducky in the midst of sterilizing every piece of glassware.

"Anthony, Timothy, what brings you down here?" Ducky asks as they head into Autopsy.

"I was hoping to grab the Gremlin and see if I can make these two look great in a tux or die trying."

Jimmy looked up from his pipettes, raised an eyebrow at Tony and said, voice bone dry, "I look fine in a tux, Tony, Tim's the one who can't wear one to save his life."

"Fine isn't good enough. This is my wedding, and you are going to look better than fine. So, can the glassware wait until tomorrow?"

"I believe it can, Anthony. Go about your Herculean labors," Ducky says with a smile.

"I really don't look that bad in a tux," Tim adds.

"Uh huh." Tony flashes him a sideways look as Jimmy puts down his pipettes. "You always look like you're about to jump out of your skin when you're in a suit of any kind."

"I didn't say I liked wearing them, I said I don't look terrible in them."

"You look terrible in them because you hate wearing them." Jimmy says as he grabs his cell out of his pocket and flashes a text to Breena. "Just checking in and letting her know I should be home on time."

"Can't imaging this'll take more than three hours," Tony says. "So why do you hate suits? You used to wear them every day."

"Because it was the dress code, Tony, and I don't hate them, I just don't like them."

"Then why don't you like them?" Jimmy asks. "It's obviously not that they're too hot, you wear long sleeves and a jacket year-round."

"I don't know. I just don't like them."

Jimmy raises an eyebrow at him.

"Fine, I don't like them because my dad used to make me wear them all the time. And looking dumb in them just made it worse. So, where are we going?" Tim asks as they got into Tony's car.

"Dominic Lawson. My tailor."

"You have a tailor?" Jimmy looks utterly shocked by this idea.

"Part of the reason why I always look great in suits is that I have them made for me. Part of the reason he looks like a twit and you look 'fine' is because you buy off the rack."

"How much is this going to cost?" Jimmy asks.

"Less than what you won in the when are Tony and Ziva getting engaged pool."

"You won that?" Tim asks, curious. He's generally not too hooked into the NCIS betting pool, so he hadn't even noticed there was a Tony and Ziva one going.

"Well, yeah." Jimmy rolls his eyes a little, of course he won it. He's won a good two-thirds of the pools that have been up in the last three years, mostly because he's got nothing against asking whoever it is what they're going to do.

"How?" Tim looks amazed.

"Same way I won yours."

"You cheated?" Tim asks.

"Of course."

"He cheated on yours?" Tony's giving Palmer an exasperated look. He'd lost two hundred dollars on that thing.

"He kept asking when I was going to do it, so I flat out told him."

"And that worked with Tony, too." They both just look at him. "What? It was an easy way to finance your wedding presents. I always use the money for a present for whoever the pool is on." Which was probably why no one complains about his unusually high win percentage.

"Speaking of which, you guys going to set up a gift registry?" Tim asks Tony.

"Nah. There's twenty people coming to our wedding, and all of them know us well enough we don't need one. Plus filling out a 'here's what presents to get us' list feels weird."

"Better than getting fourteen blenders," Jimmy says. Even with a registry, Breena's extended family and friends got them duplicate and triplicates of several things, and returning them wasn't either of their idea of fun.

"Still feels weird."

"Speaking of weird," Jimmy says a minute later as they pull up in front of an elegant brownstone in a very upscale neighborhood. "Tony, this looks like a house."

"It is a house. He works out of his top floor," Tony answers as they got out of the car and followed him to the front steps.

"Your tailor works out of his attic?" Tim asks while Tony hit the doorbell.

"He used to have a place out on Jensen, but decided to scale back five years ago."

If Tim had an idea in mind of what a tailor would look like, it certainly wasn't the man who answered the door. He'd expected the exquisitely dressed part. That was a given. The looked to be at most thirty, ebony skin, and Italian accent all took him by surprise. (For whatever reason, in Tim's mental landscape, tailors are old, white, and British.)

"Tony!"

"Dom." They did that wide-armed hug thing that Tim thinks of as being a very Italian sort of gesture.

Dom looked at both of them, smiled, and said to Tony, "You are right. Tall, pale, and skinny, and taller, paler, slightly less skinny. But we'll make them look great. Come in friends!" And thus they were ushered into a posh, that's the best word Tim can think of to describe the place, everything about it is expensive and oozes class, living room, offered tea or coffee, while Tony and Dom talked about the wedding plans and how the last suit Dom had made for Tony was working out.

Dom's measuring him, very thoroughly, extremely thoroughly, honestly, he's had sex that involved less touching than what's happening right now, (Really, why is this guy measuring around his upper thigh?) chatting away about single breasted, slim cut, silk wool blend, double vent, cutting the lapels to make his face look less long, (Tim has literally no idea at all what Dom means by that. He's just nodding and smiling at that point, way, way, way out of his depth.) telling Tony that yes, with those two (Tim assumes Dom means him and Jimmy) that vests and ties will look vastly superior to bow ties and cummerbunds, and that given this is a wedding a satin stripe on the leg and the pocket would probably look good, but without it, the suits will be much more wearable for other occasions.

And Tony's just chatting right back with him, completely comfortable, seeming to understand this bizarre onslaught of terms. Jimmy's got his phone out and for a moment Tim thought he might have been googling to figure out what's going on, but he sees Jimmy's thumbs flashing over the screen, so he's probably texting home again.

He holds up his phone and snaps a picture of Tim, trussed up in measuring tape.

"What was that?"

"Breena wants me to document the possibility of you looking good in a suit."

Tim looks at Dominic and says, "I really don't look that bad in one."

Dominic looks at Tony, who shakes his head and mouths the word, awful.

"You buy your suits pre-made?"

"Yeah."

"And that is why you look bad in them. You have a very long body."

"I'm six one."

Dom smiled at him, measuring the circumference of his wrist over his watch. (Seriously, what the hell does he need that for? Tim's half expecting the back wall to vanish, revealing wand boxes stacked to the ceiling.) "You are tall, also. But long and tall are not the same thing. Your body is a series of ovals. Oval face, oval torso, oval legs."

"Okay." He agrees about his face, but isn't seeing it for the rest of him.

"Tony is more square. Jimmy, more rectangular. Suits are made to play up the square shape of a man's body. If your body doesn't have that shape naturally, and the suit is not made properly, it will just sort of lay on the shoulders and hips, looking soft and floppy. Build the suit right, and it will hold the proper shape."

"Uh huh."

Then Dom got going about shoulder and hip width ratios and how to balance them with height as Tony and Jimmy were snickering about the soft and floppy bit. Tim didn't quite catch what Tony said to Jimmy, something less-than-complimentary about his masculinity in regards to soft and floppy, but Jimmy outright laughed at it, and best Tim can remember that's the first time in a month Jimmy's full-on laughed, so that made Tim happy.

All in all, it was a really good day.


	155. Not What They Seem

Tony's voice trailed off as Palmer sat down next to them in the brake room.

"What?" Jimmy asked as Tony looked at him.

"Nothing."

"What's he talking about, Tim?"

"Nothing…" Tony said quickly. "It's just… It's a stupid problem. And you've got enough going on without my stupid problems."

"Tony, there's nothing I can do about my problems, so give me a stupid one I may be able to help with. Because nothing's worse than feeling useless. Though feeling like your friends are afraid to say things to you for fear you'll break is a pretty close second."

Tim gives Tony a good long look when Jimmy says that, hoping he'll get back to what he was talking about, but he doesn't. Instead Tony says, "Okay. So, I've got exactly one job when it comes to this whole wedding thing: plan the honeymoon."

Tim and Jimmy are nodding. Though Jimmy adds, "Pick up the rings, and keep a hold of them until wedding time."

"Tuxes." Tim says.

"Okay, I've got three jobs. But one of them is done until the next fitting, one doesn't need to be dealt with now, and this one does. For our honeymoon, I want to find a place Ziva and I have never been. Somewhere cool, lots of good stuff to do, but it's got to be somewhere both of us have never been, somewhere we can explore, together."

"Oh." Jimmy does seem to think that this is A: A stupid problem, and B: He can't really help with it.

"Yeah. I've already stolen her passport, both of them, but all that does is rule out three quarters of the interesting places on earth and doesn't tell me about where she's been on her unofficial trips."

"Does where you are matter too much?" Jimmy asks. "When I was planning mine, the main thing I was looking for was how good the hotel room was." Tim's nodding along with that. Sure they wanted to see some interesting places, too, but mostly he was checking out the hotel amenities.

Tony sighs at that. "There's a really big difference between getting married at… what were you, thirty-four?" Jimmy nods. "And thirty-six, and the forty-eight I'll be by the time we tie the knot. So, yes, the room and whatever is in it is certainly going to be a big deal, but in that I can't do it six times a day anymore, we're going to be spending some time outside of it as well, so the room has to be located somewhere cool."

"We liked New Orleans." Tim said, willing to play along with this, but wishing Tony hadn't immediately changed the subject as soon as Jimmy showed up.

"Been there."

"Chicago?" Jimmy asks.

"Been there."

"Seattle?" Tim tries.

"We're not geeks."

"Cape May, New Jersey?" Jimmy offers. Tim just looks at him, shocked at that suggestion, and not in a good way, so he says, "What? It's cool. Beach, Victorian architecture, one of the few places you can see the sun set over the ocean on the east coast."

"New Jersey in April?" Tony just shakes his head at that idea.

"Good point. Hollywood?" Jimmy asks.

"It's supposed to be fun for her, and we've both been there."

"Mexico?" Tim suggests.

"Been there."

"Not the whole country." Tim says as he pulls his phone out of his pocket. "There's got to be a really nice beach nestled somewhere that neither of you have ever been."

"That's probably true for the Caribbean, as well." Jimmy's getting his phone out, too. "Just because you've been to one island doesn't mean you have to cross all of them off the list."

Tim starts googling away. "You want some sort of beach thing, right?"

"That'd be nice. But it's not a requirement."

"What's 'cool stuff'?" Jimmy asks, also googling.

"Good food, good dancing, beaches are a plus, movies are another plus, and Ziva likes architecture."

Tim's punching things into his phone and it comes up with Lebanon. "Well, that's not gonna work."

"What?"

"I googled beaches, night life, architecture, movies, skiing—"

"Skiing?"

"I meant water skiing, but forgot water, anyway, it came up with Lebanon."

"Yeah, that's not going to do it. Last thing I want to do is get arrested as a spy on our honeymoon."

"I've got something," Jimmy says, putting his cell on the table in front of the other two, and standing behind them. "Private island resort in Mexico…" He's showing them pictures of the place. Apparently it was a collection of ultra-deluxe cabins (if you can call something that luxurious a cabin) on several islands off of Cozumel. Close enough you could go to the mainland and party. Far enough away that if you wanted quiet time on a beach by yourself that was an option, too. "It's got all the goodies, spa, restaurants, your very own chunk of beach… You know… This looks really nice…"

"You want us to take Molly for a few days and grab a long weekend? Valentine's is next week. You could do a late present for Breena."

"We might." Jimmy's staring at the pictures in front of them.

"Are you helping me plan a honeymoon or taking one yourself?"

"Both. Maybe. Not sure I want to be away from Molly that long."

"Take her with you?" Tim offers.

"Romantic weekend with a one-year-old… Eh… I'm not getting the sense that this place is set up for kids."

"Talk to Breena about it. You want to go; we'll watch Molly, no problems."

"I'll give her a call and get back to you."

"Good."

Jimmy checks the time. "And those beakers should be done with the autoclave. Time to head back." He picks up his coffee and walks back toward Autopsy.

Once he was gone, Tim says to Tony, "You've got to stop doing that. He's your friend, and you can't keep shutting him out of your life."

Tony's calm, happy, in-charge expression vanishes and the slightly panicked one he's had all day returns. "Look, I cannot complain to him about how Ziva's talking kids, and I'm freaked out. I just… I can't do it. Not now, not to him. Last month, sure, but I can't do it now."

"If anyone's going to have sympathy for you being scared, it's Jimmy."

"Yeah, but I'm not terrified of having my heart ripped out. I mean, I may be, eventually, but right now it's this huge lump of can-I-do-this-and-not-fuck-it-up, and right now all he wants is the chance to do it. I don't want to rub his face in that."

Tim nods; that might be a good point.

"How am I going to do this? I can barely take care of a goldfish—"

"You've kept Kate for six years. That's world record goldfish maintenance. Those things die if you look at them funny. "

"It's still a goldfish, not a person, and all of this stuff with Jimmy and Breena and Jon and you and Abby and McSciuto has Ziva thinking kids, and I don't want to disappoint her, but this scares me shitless, and if I can't do this…" Tony looks down and rubs his eyes, then looks back at Tim, really scared. "Tim, you don't marry a woman who wants kids if you don't."

That shocks the hell out of Tim. "Okay, stop right there. Yes, you're right, if she wants kids and you don't, you don't marry her. But you love her—"

"More than anything. I really do, and that was terrifying in and of itself. But this last month is making her think _I want kids_ and it's making me think _I want a vasectomy_."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Maybe it is fear of having my heart ripped out. I was watching Jimmy when he got the news, and… I don't think I could survive that. And look at him, he's calling home every hour, and you know they aren't going to Mexico because he can't stand to have Molly out of his sight for that long. I don't think I can take that."

Tim lets out a long sigh. He knows that part of the traditional best man job is talking the groom off the ledge he's about to jump off of because he's got cold feet. But this wasn't a flavor of cold feet he was expecting. "Tony, if you love her, then you step up and have the kids and you do a good job of being a dad because that's the cost of loving her. That's what your happiness is more important to me than mine means. And if she loves you, and if you can't do it, _really_ can't do it, then she'll put it aside because your happiness will be more important than hers. Either way, you've got to figure out if you can't do it or if you're just too scared to think straight."

Tony sighs. "Scared. I know it's scared. I want to make her happy. I want to be a man she can depend on to do the right thing, but what if I'm bad at it? God, what if I end up on my own with this kid? Or what if we lose him?"

"First off, we're not going to let you be bad at it. There's a long line of men here who love you and Ziva, and we will not let you fail her. Secondly, no matter what, you won't be alone. If something happens to Ziva, we'll still be here. We didn't let Jimmy and Breena down, and we won't let you down. Think about it, Gibbs is actually _talking_ to Jimmy to help keep him afloat. You think he'd do any less for you? And lastly, if something did happen to your baby, you'd survive it. Jimmy and Breena are going to make it. Gibbs made it. Worst comes to worst, you'll make it, too."

"I don't want to be my dad."

"When your mom died, did your dad have anything like us?"

"I don't know. Not that I remember. Hundreds of people came to the funeral, and then the next day we were alone. Just me and him and a big, empty house that still felt like her. The day after that, he went back to work, in the city, and it was just me and a nanny, all day, every day, until September and I was off to boarding school."

"That won't happen, not to you, not again. Look…" Tim feels a little weird about saying this out loud. Doing it wasn't weird, but talking about it… But Tony's more than grown up enough that he won't tease Jimmy about it, and Tim feels up to handling whatever Tony might toss at him. "The first night Jimmy was back, we slept with him, held onto him, made sure he wasn't on his own. We slept with him and Breena the first night she was home, too. Then stayed at their place for three days after that. After we left, Ducky stayed at their place every night for a week. You know Ziva brought food. And I know you and Gibbs and Ziva took that case and did my job so I could be there for Molly. No matter what else happens, you're never going to be alone again because you're stuck with us."

Tony looks really touched by that, but it fades quickly, his emotional armor slipping back into place, getting him back into a more comfortable mindset. "You slept with Palmer?"

Tim rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and if you're ever hurting that bad, I'll cuddle you, too."

Tony laughs at that, then says, seriously, "Thanks."

Tim thinks for a minute. "So, did you actually need honeymoon help?"

"Nah, booked it last week."

Tim looks at him curiously.

"Johannesburg."

"South Africa?"

"We've never been there. It's supposed to be like California. Great beaches, night life, and safari."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Should be cool."


	156. The Range

"I hate guns," Jimmy says, looking at the weapons in front of him. It's Saturday afternoon, and as per Gibbs' instructions they are spending an hour at the range.

"They're just tools," Tim answers. At least as far as he's concerned step one of proper gun usage is to not fetishize them.

"Tools for killing people."

"Yep."

"I don't want to kill people."

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly my idea of fun, either. Sometimes you have to, though."

Jimmy realizes what he just said to Tim. "Oh. Shit. I'm sorry. I didn't… How many?"

Tim looks at his gun. "One more than I should have."

It takes Jimmy a minute to remember what Tim's talking about. Then it clicks, that case with the undercover cop. "I… I thought you didn't know for sure."

"I don't, no one does, but it doesn't matter. Look." Tim gestures for Jimmy to put on his ear protection as he puts on his and runs the target out its fullest extension. He quickly, steadily empties his clip, and then pulls the target close, taking off his ear protection. All fifteen bullets tore through the head of the target. "I aimed at him. I pulled the trigger. I wasn't any worse of a shot then than I am now. Doesn't matter if it was my bullet or not. I meant to kill him. I shot at him. It's on me."

Tim touches one of the two guns in front of them, changing the subject. "So, this one is a Sig Sauer. It's the standard NCIS pistol. Tony, Gibbs, and I carry one and like them. Ziva prefers her Beretta." He touches the other one. "It's got slightly less recoil, which is nice for getting a whole lot of fast shots off accurately, but the trigger guard's a bit smaller, fine for her, she's got little hands, but I don't think it's as comfortable."

Jimmy nods, staring at them. "Really don't want to do this."

"You've got two girls who depend on you to come home every single night. So, you're going to do it. No more hoping the cavalry shows up in time. You're going to learn how to be your own cavalry."

Jimmy just kept staring at the guns in front of him.

"And for the record, I absolutely refuse to help Abby and Breena bury your ass because you don't like guns. If it ever comes down to you're going home or he is, the correct answer is you."

Jimmy looks away from the guns and up at Tim, looking mildly exasperated. "Tim, I think you're confused on which one of us is the cop."

"One minute later when you got kidnapped, and you and I would have never been more than friendly co-workers. Not gonna happen again. Next time you shoot someone, you'll kill them."

"Wonderful. I'm a doctor, you know. Killing people is the antithesis of my job."

"So's Ducky. You want him to come along next time?"

"This is going to be embarrassing enough without being out-shot by an eighty-year-old."

Tim shook his head. "Don't worry about embarrassing. It's physically impossible for you to be worse at this than I was when I started."

"I really doubt that."

"Uh huh. You know how you said when you asked Ed to marry Breena that he laughed so hard he cried?"

"Yeah."

"I'm seven-years-old. My dad and grandfather, who were both apparently born knowing how to shoot anything that shoots, took me to the range to learn how to shoot a gun. They both laughed so hard they cried."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. The only reason I ever got good at it was that Jim Nelson took pity on me at FLETC and decided I was too damn smart to fail out because I couldn't shoot. He spent hours working with me on it. I'd drill him on the book work while he got me through my gun proficiency. So, pick them up, find one that feels good in your hand, and let's learn how to shoot it."

Jimmy sort of poked the berretta. "So, your dad, what, just gave up?"

"Oh no… no… Don't think my dad ever just 'gave up' on anything." Tim's got a really forced grin on his face and is shaking his head as he says this. "He kept at it for years when he was on land. But when I was fifteen, he came to the conclusion that yelling at me while I had a loaded gun in my hands was a bad idea. Even though I flinched every time I pulled the trigger, I could still hit a guy six inches from my shoulder, leaning over me, calling me a worthless, cock-sucking cunt—"

"What?!" Jimmy looks beyond horrified.

"You ever heard the phrase 'curse like a sailor'?" Tim asks, voice very dry.

"Yeah…"

"You think it's a joke?"

"Apparently not," he says, eyes very wide.

Tim nodded. "Part of the reason I usually don't."

Jimmy thought about that. "Have I ever heard you curse?"

"I'd imagine you have, but no examples are immediately springing to mind. Gibbs and Ziva have, and Abby, of course."

Jimmy takes a step back. "Why are you cursing at her?"

"I don't only do it when I'm angry."

Jimmy looks a little confused by that answer.

"You think I've never talked dirty to Abby?"

"You know, honestly, I don't spend all that much time speculating about your sex life. Mine keeps me more than happy enough."

Tim smiled at him and said, "Anyway, he was cussing me out because I couldn't hit the target. I think the last time we did it, he saw the look on my face, and realized he was one step away from breaking the very thin thread of control that kept me from shooting him."

"Really?"

"Yeah. At least, I know I was thinking about it awfully hard. He'd been gone for six months, and second day home, after yelling at me for only having a 3.92 GPA and not being first string on the wrestling team, he decided we needed to go shooting, and he spent an hour yelling at me about it, and I was standing there, sweating, trying not to cry, hitting other people's targets, the back wall, the ceiling, the floor, but not my target, and I just stopped, stood there, gun in hand, at my side, and thought about the fact that I was fifteen, no record, model student, and everyone else in the damn place could hear what he was yelling at me, so they probably wouldn't put me in jail for more than six years, maybe just three, and that was starting to look awfully good.

"He stared at me, took the gun out of my hand, packed it up, saying nothing, and we went home and never went shooting again. So, you're not going to be any worse at this than I was, and I'm not going to yell at you. And I also know you're stalling. Pick one."

"Fine. I'm not just stalling." Jimmy picked the Sig up, held it in his hand awkwardly, and said, "I'm honestly curious about your dad, too. You never talk about him."

"And if you want, we'll talk about him, after we shoot. Like this." Tim showed Jimmy how to curl the gun into his right hand and use his left for support. "How's that feel?"

"Heavy. Solid. Like a gun?"

"Good. You sight down the barrel. Once you get it set, keep steady on the inhale, and gently curl your index finger in on the exhale. Slow and easy. Watch." Tim demonstrated his own technique. "Just relax into it. Find your center, block out the rest of the world, and then pull the trigger."

They put their ear protection back on, and Jimmy shot, and hit his target. Granted it's only twenty feet off, but still, he hit it. He looked at Tim, eyebrows high, looking really surprised. "It's actually kind of cathartic."

"Yeah. Fourteen more to go on that clip. Have at it."

He takes each one slow and easy, nice, relaxed pose, and just curls his finger into it. "You know, it's like yoga with explosions."

Tim thinks about that for a moment and shrugs.

"Really. You find your center, clear your mind, and then make your body do something while you hold the quiet."

"Don't say that to Gibbs; he'll turn you into a sniper."

"Not with my eyesight, he won't. Still, you think they'd let Breena come with us next week?"

They're at the NCIS training range. It's supposed to be personnel only, but… "We can try."

"She already knows how to shoot. Ed taught her. Still, it feels good. And I think she'd like something that feels good."

"Then bring her next week. If we can't do it here; there's got to be another range nearby."

"Abby should come, too."

Tim thinks about that. "I'd want to do some googling on that first. Run it by our OB. I don't think the shockwaves would be a problem, but…"

Jimmy nods, and Tim realizes that Jimmy's never going to smack him upside the head for being too protective of Abby again.

* * *

After the range they decided to grab a quick coffee. At least, Tim figures Jimmy'll hold him to talking about his dad, so something that tastes good to go with that'll make it easier.

Tim brings their drinks to the table, and Jimmy wraps up a text to Breena, then asks, "You still think about it?"

"About?"

"The undercover cop," he says, pocketing his phone.

"Oh." Tim exhales loudly. "Yeah. John Benedict. His name was John Benedict. Not as often as I used to. Not often enough to keep me from feeling guilty about moving on. But it'll be ten years in November, and I did move on, it's not there in the front of my mind anymore."

Jimmy fiddles with his cup. "He was going to kill us. No doubt about that at all. And I fired, hit him, dropped him, and all I wanted to do was throw up and cry."

"Yeah. Felt the same way. And then I found out he was a cop. So I did throw up, and cry. And Tony would tell you something pretty similar about the first time he shot someone." Tim figures that gets the idea across without breaking Tony's trust to never say anything about it.

"And now?"

"Now?"

"You've killed guys since then."

"Yeah. Got nine of them when we ran into the Sarin plot." The official report showed that all seven of the men he shot while defending the freezer had died, as well as the group leader, who bled to death after his hand was blown off, and one other guy who must have caught a bullet when they were running. "I was going home or they were, and it wasn't going to be them. I still had nightmares about it for weeks after."

"But you don't anymore?"

"Not about shooting them. Still wake up in a cold sweat thinking I'm back in that freezer again, feeling Tony pressed up against me not breathing. But that only happens after really bad days when I have a hard time getting out of whatever case we're working on."

"Your dad really called you a," Jimmy's voice dropped to almost inaudible, "cunt?"

Tim laughs dismissively, partly amused at the fact that Jimmy says the word like he's afraid it'll bite him, and partly because that's not the worst thing his dad has called him. Being called worthless, failure, and waste of talent bugged him a hell of a lot more than being called a girl or gay. "He learned his parenting technique from a string of really foul-mouthed petty officers. Apparently, if you scream at new sailors long enough, they get whipped into proper Navy shape. He was bound and determined to turn me into a sailor, so he used the same technique that worked for those guys."

"While completely missing the fact that you didn't enlist and were thus not particularly motivated to be a sailor."

"Yeah. I mean, I was, as a little kid. I'd do anything to make him smile at me. Who doesn't feel that way about his dad when he's six? But by the time I was ten perfect was the minimum requirement to not get yelled at, and I only got smiles for going way above and beyond."

"So you've been going way above and beyond ever since, pleasing everyone else around you, looking for the smiles he wouldn't give you."

"Yeah."

"And you hook up with Gibbs who has pretty much the same set of standards, but who does pet you when you live up to them."

"Yep. And who doesn't take my failings as a personal affront."

"Failings?" Jimmy looks confused. Sure, he knows Tim isn't perfect, but he seems pretty good at his job. At least, not bad enough at anything to qualify as 'failing.'

"I'm six. My dad is taking me out on a boat for the first time. And he's hyped it up as the best thing ever. Nothing better than boats. Every good thing on God's blue earth is involved with boating and we're going boating! Yippee." It's possible that he could have gotten more sarcasm into that yippee, but not likely. "And we're going together, alone. One of the few times I can remember doing anything with my dad on my own. Wonderful." Once again, there's withering sarcasm on that word. "I get on the damn thing and within ten minutes I'm puking my guts out. And the first time he rubs my back, pets me a little, tells me it'll get better when we get further out, and then he makes me spend the whole damn day on the boat, and I spent the whole day feeling so sick I wanted to die. We get home, he tells me it'll get better, that I'll get used to it, and soon boating will be great fun. Shockingly enough, I didn't believe that. And even if it was going to get better, I was absolutely terrified of boats by that point. So the next week when he tried to take me out again, and remember, I'm six years old, I burst into tears, cried the whole way there, and then spent the whole day, because once again we had to spend all eight hours of that day on that damn boat, throwing up and sobbing. That time he started yelling at me to toughen up."

"You were six?"

"I might have been seven, possibly five. But not eight because we were back east that year, and I know it happened before we spent that year out of Annapolis."

"Why on earth did you ever sign up for anything having to do with the Navy?"

"I really am insane? No. I thought he might… approve, I guess. My last attempt to get a smile. It didn't work. Anyway, first time I'm on a boat with Gibbs, and well, yeah, I'm still sea sick, he tells me to sip some ginger ale and nibble on saltines. As long as I got the job done, it was okay that I was sick."

"Tim, getting nauseous on boats isn't a failing."

"It was in my family."

"Your dad is insane."

"Abby's said that, too."

"He pull a lot of that crap?"

"Enough so we're not speaking. Enough so that I'm dreading Sarah's wedding because he'll be there."

"Sarah's getting married?" That took Jimmy by surprise, he was fairly sure that was the kind of thing Tim would tell him, though if it happened recently...

"She's not engaged, but I assume it'll happen eventually. She and that Glen guy are moving down here in March."

"'That Glen Guy?'"

"You met him at the wedding."

"I remember. Just, you calling him that."

"Oh."

"I sometimes forget you're a big brother."

Tim shrugs at that. "Not too involved these days. Short of making sure my agent actually read her first novel, I haven't had to do too much looking out for her. You talk to Clark recently?"

"No. He sent a card and some flowers. My mom says he's too scared to call."

"Scared?"

"Terrified of saying something stupid."

Tim doesn't know if Jimmy's talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is a family trait or just him, so he says, "Maybe saying nothing at all is the better choice then."

"Maybe." He fiddles with his drink and sighs. "Twenty-six minutes."

"Jimmy?"

"That's the longest I can go without thinking about Jon or feeling scared that something might happen to Breena or Molly."

"It'll get better."

"I know. How long before you could go half an hour without thinking about Benedict or the freezer or your dad?"

"When he's around, my dad still freaks me out, pisses me off, makes me feel fifteen and out of control again. I hate having him around. When he's not, months can go by without thinking about him. I don't remember when that shift happened, but it was after I started working at NCIS. After I stopped talking to him. After I moved to DC, changed my number, and told Sarah and Penny not to give it to him.

"It was a good year before I could go a day without thinking about Benedict. I don't remember it well enough to know more specifically than that. But I remember that a whole day had gone by, and then the next, and I hadn't thought of him, and I felt sick about it. So that kept it in my mind for a few weeks, but it kept drifting further and further away.

"The freezer…Which part of it? Nightmares every night for a solid week. Sporadically for months after. And every now and again now. If I don't get the time to fully pull out of work before sleeping, they come back. I couldn't make myself believe Tony was really alive until I touched him. That was a full day. I still hate cold, and I'm fairly sure that if someone ever gets murdered in a walk in freezer our whole team will bow out of that case; I know I can't make myself walk into one of them. Don't like pitch black, either. I get really nervous if that moment where my eyes adjust to the dark takes too long.

"All in all, I'd say it was probably six weeks before I could go half an hour without thinking about something having to do with that case. And the only thing that stopped the nightmares from being a nightly occurrence was writing it all out. I took five hours, wrote everything, staring off as McGregor, because there's a buffer between me and him, and eventually shifted into my own voice, into my own memories, that helped, at least, let me get some sleep. You sleeping any?"

"Yeah, but with help."

"Alcohol?"

"No. Ducky wrote me a prescription. And I'm following the instructions."

"Okay."

"So, you just wrote?"

"I find it easier to deal with things if they're on paper. So, yeah, me, my typewriter, five hours and twenty-five pages later and I at least knew what the next step was."

"What was it?"

"I got all my affairs in order. Made sure that if something happened to me, Abby'd be taken care of." He smiles a little. "Stopped being a boyfriend and became a husband."

Jimmy nods at that. "Yeah."

"You can read them, if you want. Breena, too. They aren't good, but they're real. Give you a better idea of who I was right after than I'm doing by trying to talk about it."

"Has anyone else read them?"

"Abby. Wolf. Writing them got me cleared for active duty."

"I'd like to."

"I'll bring them to Bootcamp tomorrow."


	157. Tears and Guns

Tim noticed two things when he stepped into the house. First off, it smelled great. Something really yummy was cooking away. Secondly, Abby was crying.

From the front door you can see the living room, and the area in front of the TV so, his first hope, that she was just watching something sad on TV, was very rapidly dashed.

Unfortunately, these days crying Abby is a much more common occurrence than he'd really like. Even if what had happened with Jon hadn't happened, she'd probably be pretty weepy. He had figured there were going to be mood swings, and yeah there were.

But then Jon died and whatever emotional reserves Abby had got eaten alive. The ability to say, 'yep, not a big deal, no need to burst into tears,' which had been rendered pretty tenuous by the onslaught of pregnancy hormones, completely vanished.

So, not only is she crying, a lot, which he hates, because if you love a woman, watching her collapse into harsh sobs is torture, but he can't do anything about it. As of this point in time, he's been able to fix precisely zero percent of the issues that have sent her into a crying jag. And to make it worse, these emotional melt-downs are half his fault, because he'd certainly been involved in the whole, let's get you pregnant thing.

The best he can do is be there, get cried on, and provide her with something solid to hold onto.

And he still hates it because he feels so ridiculously useless.

But it's what he can do. So he does. Tim hangs up his coat, takes off his boots, secures his gun, and follows the sound of crying into the kitchen.

She's sitting at the kitchen table, arms folded in front of her, face resting on her forearms, crying.

He rests his hands on her shoulders, and kisses the nape of her neck. "Hey."

She stands up and snuggles in against him. He kisses her forehead.

"I forgot the garlic."

Finally, a problem he can fix! Something he can do. He can go out and get garlic like nobody's business. If garlic will make her stop crying, he'll buy every clove of it in the store. "I can go get some."

She looks up at him with red rimmed eyes. "It's Forty Clove Chicken! How do you forget the garlic for Forty Clove Chicken?"

Which is when he rapidly came to the conclusion that the garlic is a symptom, not the problem, and they are once again in things he can't fix territory. "Everyone forgets things."

"I wrote it down, on the list." There is a list on the table, next to her phone. "I went to the store, got everything else, came home, browned up the chicken, put the whole thing together, wine, tarragon, onions, bay leaf, everything, stuck it in the oven—"

"It smells really good."

She glares at him. Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. Minimizing the impact of forgotten garlic was not the right tactic.

"With no garlic in it," she finishes, ignoring his interruption. "It's like my mind decided there would be no garlic in the world. It was on my list. It's in the recipe. It's the name of the damn dish."

"It's okay."

She's looking angry in addition to sad now, and he's feeling really uncertain of what to do next. Not talking at all is starting to seem like a really good idea.

"No it's not! Tim, _I forgot._ I don't forget. I remember. I do things right. I follow directions and make the right choices and produce the right results. I don't forget!"

"Oh." He thought fast. "It's normal. The books said it happens. That the hormones—"

"Don't tell me it's the hormones!" And sad vanished, replaced by all angry. "I know it's the hormones! I'm forgetting things and crying about it. Of course it's the hormones! That doesn't mean it's not real, and that it isn't happening, or that I don't hate it! I'd rather throw up every day for the entire rest of my pregnancy than forget things."

"I'm not trying to dismiss it. Just… it'll get better. Your system'll go back to normal, and you'll go back to being you again."

"What if I don't?"

His eyes went wide, and he really doesn't know what to say about that.

"Lots of women don't go back. They keep forgetting things, and they change."

"We're both going to change. We can't not change. We'll be parents."

She smiles at him a little, and it's clear that's a _I know you're trying to cheer me up, and I appreciate it, but it's not going to work_ gesture. "It's my mind, Tim. I can handle fat and saggy and varicose veins and crabby and tired, but… I can't lose my mind. I can't start forgetting things. That's who I am, not what I am."

He smiles a little back at her, because there's nothing he can say about it, and kisses her again.

"It'll get better."

"You don't know that."

"No, I don't. But I can hope. And you can pray. And you and I will become different people, but we'll do it together, and in the end, it'll be okay. Whatever's coming, we'll figure it out."

She didn't look too impressed with that, either. But he can tell she's giving him points for trying, even if he's not succeeding at making her feel better.

She sighs, wipes her eyes, kisses him, and then pulls back and asks, "So, how did shooting go?"

And he's all in favor of changing the subject, because maybe that'll at least provide a decent distraction and work on getting her mood better. "Really well. Jimmy said it was like yoga with explosions. He's talking about bringing Breena next time, and if the OB says it's okay, you're invited, too."

"Why wouldn't it be okay?"

"Shockwaves? Remember the episodes of Mythbusters where Kerri's pregnant?"

She nods.

"She went nowhere near any of the explosions or gunfire then."

"Really? That's what's making you think it might not be okay."

"Just making me cautious."

She snorted at him, looking mildly amused by that.

"Think of it this way, it'll probably be the first time Dr. Draz has ever gotten that question."

"That's probably true."

"And it's good to keep her on her toes. Wouldn't want her getting bored."

"Yes, our primary job as patients is to keep her entertained."

"Precisely." He headed to the sink to get himself a glass of water. "I was thinking about something else on the ride home." He poured one, held the glass out to her, and she nodded her head, so he grabbed another one and filled it for him. "We've got four guns in this house, and very soon, at least one child."

She nods, that's true. He sits down at the table next to her and hands her one of the glasses. "You want more security for them?" They have two gun safes, one built into the wall near the front door. That's where his service pistol goes. And one in the bedroom where his backup gun and both of Abby's live. And at all times when there's a gun in them, those safes are locked.

"Debating trigger locks."

She thought about that. "You want one for your service pistol, and that's fine. But if I'm going for the guns in our room, it's because something's gone very wrong, and I don't want anything slowing me down."

"Okay. Good point."

"And I do want all of our kids knowing how to shoot."

He nods. That was something he'd been planning on.

"And I know you don't hunt, but… At least for me, going hunting with my dad and seeing what those bullets did to the animals they hit, that made me respect what a gun could do. Paper targets don't bleed, so you shoot them, and it's a game. You shoot an animal, and you know you've killed something. You know that this is important and dangerous and not a game at all."

"That makes sense. Does Gibbs hunt? I know Tony doesn't, and I know there's more to it than just being able to hit a target." If it was just about accuracy, then he'd be great at it, and taking their kids would be no problem, but he's fairly sure there's some sort of skill involved in making sure you don't scare the deer or turkey or whatever it is off before it gets into place for you to shoot it.

"He used to. I don't think he has in a long time."

"Maybe one of these years, we won't buy the Christmas turkey."

"That would probably work."


	158. Valentine's 2015

"Breena's really ready for this?" Tim asked as he slipped on his kilt. (New one. Jimmy and Breena got it for him as a combined Christmas/birthday present. Apparently there is a McGee plaid. Ducky was enlisted to hunt it down. Back in the dark ages, before they decided to try the next island to the west, the MacGhees were Scottish, and as such, there is a McGee tartan. It's hunter, black, navy, and gray, and he really likes it.)

"She says she is," Abby answered. "Molly's a year old today, and she's bound and determined to have a birthday party for her."

Tim nodded and began buttoning up his shirt. Abby has mentioned liking the somewhat dressier kilt look, so he's getting into a white button-down, plaid kilt, and in a few minutes boots, tie, and jacket.

"She's put a lot of effort into this," Abby said as she pulled a knee high sock up one leg.

"What's a lot of effort?"

"She was telling me about the hand-made cupcakes decorated with all of Molly's favorite characters."

"Molly has favorite characters?" He'd spent a good five days with her straight, and hadn't noticed anything he'd call a preference for anything on the television or in books.

"She really likes the Muppets."

"Huh. Wish I had known that. I like them, too."

"Really?" That takes Abby by surprise. She didn't know that about him.

"Not like I've seen them anytime recently. But my first TV memories are watching the Muppet Show with my grandfather and mom. Loved Kermit."

"Apparently her favorite is Kermit, too."

"Next time we babysit, there will be Muppet bonding."

Abby laughed at that. "Anyway, I don't know how 'ready' she is for this, but I do know she's decorated every inch of the house, made cupcakes with Muppets on them, and invited the whole clan, so we're going, we're going to have a good time, and we'll do everything we can to make sure everyone else does, too."

"We'll party or die trying?"

She looked up from her sock and said, "Yes."

"Well, that's not going to be awkward, at all."

"You need to watch a little less Supernatural. You're starting to sound like Dean."

He flashed her a playful look. "Awesome!"

"Way less."

He smiled at her and winked. "Get some pie on the way home?"

"Okay, you're cut off."

"No! I'm half way through season seven. You can't cut me off."

"Then behave." She grinned at him. "Zip me up?"

He knelt down and got the zipper on her boots. At sixteen weeks along, Abby's definitely pregnant. There is an unmistakable baby bump there. And yes, she can still bend well enough to zip knee high boots, but it's also a lot easier to have Tim do it.

So he does, because it's not like an opportunity to rub his hands over her legs is something he minds.

Once booted up, she pulled on a green baby-doll dress with a wide black collar.

And while it's true the McGees might not be fashionable in any traditional sense, they're definitely stylish.

* * *

It wasn't as awkward as Tim was afraid it was going to be. Probably because if there was ever a group of people who needed a good time, it was them.

So, yeah, Molly couldn't have cared less about the decorations or the presents. (Though everyone else, including Gibbs, told Breena how great of a job she had done. Okay, he smiled at her in a congratulatory manner and kissed her cheek, but Breena understood what it meant.) But she did enjoy being the center of attention, and people cooing over her crawling around and babbling. And she was extremely enthusiastic about ripping into her Kermit cupcake and utterly demolishing it. (How much of it she actually ate as opposed to scattered over the kitchen is open for debate.)

Even Ed was on his best behavior. Though he did stare at Tim, looking really uncomfortable with the kilt for a good five minutes, and when he found out the idea for it was Breena's he just stared at her, too. (Tim wasn't sure what disturbed Ed more: him in a kilt or Breena buying one for him.) But Breena started telling him about going to the range with Jimmy and Tim and Abby, and that got them talking guns, which turned out to be actually fairly pleasant. Ziva and Tony got into it, too. And toward the end, even Gibbs was chatting with them, talking a little about distance shooting, and how back when he started you had to be able to do the math in your head, which got Ducky talking about the history of projectile weapons, and okay, yeah, it's not a traditional topic of conversation for a birthday party, let alone a birthday party for a one-year-old girl, but since by that point, the birthday girl was sleeping in Ducky's arms, (She drifted off when he got talking about ballistae. Apparently his voice is awfully hypnotic if you're a baby.) it worked.

The party broke up not too long after that. It's Valentine's, after all, and granted, Tim and Abby don't have any fancy plans (Quiet night in was a winner last year, and it's likely to be a winner this year, as well.) but Tony and Ziva do, and he knows that Ducky has offered to watch Molly so Jimmy and Breena can go out for dinner tonight.

They stick around to help clean up and make a date for the range the next day, before Jimmy and Tim join Gibbs for bootcamp and then head home.

* * *

They grab a light dinner on the way home. It's early enough the restaurants aren't packed, and they are dressed up enough that going out seems like fun to him. Plus, he's been craving khoa phat pu* all afternoon. Sure he's the dad half of the team, but apparently this has not rendered him immune to food cravings.

They're seated and eating when something occurs to him. "You realize, this time next year, Gibbs might be watching Kelly for us so we can go out."

Abby grins at that, a really clear image of Gibbs holding their baby in her mind. Then another very clear image: Gibbs playing with Molly, nibbling on her tummy, doing an astonishingly good Cookie Monster impersonation, while she shrieked with laughter, and then suddenly stopping and giving her to Breena sprang to mind. "You think he's ever changed a diaper?"

Tim thinks about that. Kelly was born in '82, so after guys were expected to do some of the messy work of being a parent, but not all that far after, and he's got no idea how long it took for that idea to filter into the world of Marines. He does know that in '86, when his sister was born, most of the guys on the Navy base they lived on would have rather cut an arm off than change a diaper. And he knows that if his dad ever changed a diaper, it was his, because he certainly never did it for Sarah. But Gibbs never struck him as the kind of guy who was so uncertain in his masculinity that doing 'women's work' would freak him out.

"I'm gonna say yes, but with a lot of doubt."

"Yeah. Did you ever think Ducky would take to being a grandfather the way he has?"

"Nope. Never thought he'd melt into a pile of goo over a baby."

"I was telling him that she's never going to learn to walk if he doesn't occasionally let be her on the floor."

Tim chuckles at that. "He looked ready to wrestle Ed for snuggling rights."

"Ed did really well today. I don't think he said anything that pissed anyone off."

"Yeah, he did do well. Maybe he's finally learning some tact."

"We can hope. It'd be nice to not dread going to family gatherings with him."

"Yeah, it would."

*Thai style crab fried rice.

* * *

When they got home, Tim unbuckled his seat belt but left the keys in the ignition. "Out you go, for at least the next two hours."

"Two hours?"

"More if you like. But not less than two hours."

"What are you doing?"

"Last Valentine's Night without kids. I'm preparing for it."

"Okay." Abby grinned. "Hot and dirty?"

"Oh yes!" He flashed her a sexy smile. "With a side of kink, and an extra helping of erotic."

"All right, then! Anything you want me to bring home?"

"You in a submissive mood."

"Ohhh…" Her eyes lit with pleasure.

"Yeah." He flashed his eyebrows at her and got out of the car. "See you after seven thirty."

* * *

Two hours is a lot of time to be imagining what Tim could have been planning. All sorts of good things might be in the offing. So, it was with a spring in her step and a smile on her face that Abby headed to his office door. (Music from inside let her know he was in there.)

"Well?" She was grinning and looking around curiously. So far all she could see was that Tim was still in the kilt, though he'd taken off the jacket, boots, and socks, rolled up his sleeves, and loosened his tie.

He stood up, smiled, and pointed up. "Upstairs."

She skipped up the stairs, holding his hands, and dragging him behind her. She flung open the door to their bedroom and…

"Huh?" The expression on her face was really confused.

He just grinned at her. Wide, happy smile on his face, he was really enjoying this.

She walked in and looked up, eyebrows furrowing, obviously there's something going on here, but she's not getting it. Then looked around, and looked back to him. "You got me a plant and rearranged our furniture."

"Yep!" He beamed at her.

She stared around the room again, utterly perplexed. He just grinned like this was the best joke on earth.

She walked beneath the plant and looked up at it. It was a very attractive… something. Abby's not good with live plants. If she had to identify it by its pollen or spores or whatever, it'd be no problem, but a living plant hanging from the ceiling over her head… Nope. No idea.

"Did the words hot, dirty, or kinky get redefined while I was out?"

"If they did, I didn't get the memo."

"Uh huh..." Maybe it was some sort of special aphrodisiac plant. "What kind of plant is it?"

He trailed his fingers down her neck and back as she stared up at it. "Some sort of fern. It's green. It doesn't need a lot of sun, and supposedly it's pretty forgiving if you forget to water it. The lady at the plant store said they were practically impossible to kill, so that sounded like a good choice."

"Okay. So, you got me a random plant."

"Yes. But if you look up a little higher, you'll see something else I got you."

She looked up further, and then looked at the rearranged furniture. Abby crossed their room and closed the door to their bathroom. The door with the full length mirror on it. And suddenly this all made a whole lot of sense, and yes, hot, kinky, and erotic did not get redefined anytime recently.

"Oh."

He grinned even wider. "Exactly. Go open your closet door."

She did, and found both a new mirror on the back of her door, and a nicely wrapped box sitting on the floor of her closet.

"May I open it?"

"In a moment. You can take it out and put it on the bed, though. Leave the closet door open." Tim headed over to the plant and took it off the hook.

The hook was the real present. Well, part of it. Most plant holders are made of plastic or cheap metal, something that'll hold a few pounds easily, but can't take any real weight. The hook Tim's sunk into the joist in their ceiling will hold his weight bouncing around on it. (He checked.) He moved his dresser. His is waist high on him, and very handy for certain positions. Now, it's under that hook. And by moving his dresser, it's now in front of the mirror on the back of their bathroom door, so, if say, someone were to tie you up and put you on the dresser, all you'd have to do is look to your left, and you'd have a great view of what was going on. And if you wanted to see it from a different angle, there was always the new mirror on the back of Abby's closet door, which would be in front of you. And of course, there's the original mirror that goes with that dresser, behind you.

So, basically, anything you might want to do in that general area had been set so you can see it from any angle really easily.

Abby noticed something else. Tim's dresser was now on those little coaster things that make furniture easy to slide. She smiled at that. So, if they wanted to do something with the hook, but not on the dresser, that'd be easily arranged, too.

He watched her look around, notice everything he did, and kissed her throat, right on his lip tattoo.

"I was thinking that pretty soon we're going to have kids in this house. And probably a nanny. Eventually kids' friends. After Kelly comes, we might have visitors in our room. So, if the sex gear was subtle, that might be a good thing." He moved the present to the center of their bed. "Plus rearranging the mirrors means," he patted the bed letting her know he wanted her to sit, "we can get a good view of everything that goes on in our bed as well."

Abby sat on the bed next to the present, noticing that yep, she could see herself in all three mirrors. He nodded at her in a way she took to mean _go ahead, open it,_ and then pulled the long, black satin ribbon off the box. "For tonight?"

"Maybe." He grinned.

She slit the paper carefully, unwrapping the box slowly, remembering him saying something about enjoying being teased by the slow reveal. Granted he knew what's in the box, but she hoped he's enjoying her finding out what's in it.

She lifted the lid, whistles softly, and says, "Oh."

This time the grin on his face was pure sex. "Yeah."

Padded wrist cuffs and from the look of them, they could be used one on each wrist, or strapped to each other, and if the metal rings on them are anything to go by they're designed to be attached to a rope or chain and hung from that hook.

And under them was a collection of glass dilators. Abby saw them and looked up at Tim, pleased expression on her face.

"Want to see if you can get off with straight anal?"

She looked back down at them. "Just anal?"

"Maybe not just… How about tied up from the ceiling, spun out like crazy, slowly stretched as I suck every inch of your body, and then fucked as hard as you like until you're coming on my cock."

Abby licked her lips. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Go get a shower. I'll be out here getting ready for you."

"Getting ready for you" meant pushing the dresser over a bit. He wants her standing for this, so it's got to be out of the way.

It also meant finding the right pair of boots for her, and stockings to go with them. He wanted ones that would make her the same height he is, if not a little taller, and preferably platforms as opposed to a high heel. She needed to be comfortable standing in them for as long as this will take, and these days high heels don't agree with her low back. Fortunately she had a wide selection of boots to pick from.

He headed to his bedside table and fetched the lube, his folding knife, and the black silk rope.

The folding knife neatly sliced the ribbon in half. He's going to tie one ankle to the leg of his dresser and the other to the leg of their bed, so he needed two ropes for that.

He draped the rope over the hook and decided to tie each wrist individually tonight.

He finished up the scene by laying out the dilators on his dresser, where she'll be able to see them. There are six of them, short, three inch long plugs with a ring-shaped base (for easy insertion and removal, even if your fingers are coated with lube) ranging from a little less than an inch around (smaller than one of his fingers) to five and a half inches (slightly smaller than his dick). They're clear glass and almost shine in the light from the lamp on his bedside table.

He liked the idea of the anticipation of seeing them all there. Of knowing that a long, slow, steady build up was coming.

Tim heard the water in the bathroom shut off, followed a few seconds later by a dripping wet Abby standing in front of him, holding a towel.

"Sometimes I forget how good you are at this." When she subs, she really subs. He didn't tell her to dry off, so she didn't. "Go ahead and dry off. Get your hair dry enough so it isn't dripping down your back, but don't worry about getting it completely dry."

He sat on the bed and watched her do it, enjoying the play of her hands on her skin, the towel rubbing gently over her, and the way the water glistened on her.

As he was watching a new idea occurred to him, and he liked that one even better than the one he had before.

Six dilators. Two arms, two legs, mouth and pussy. One part to play with for each size. Yeah, that idea worked.

She was almost dry. "When you get done with that, I want you to come stand in front of me."

She nodded.

"You can speak or make any noises you like."

"Yes." She stood in front of him.

He picked up one of the stockings and patted the bed between his legs. "Your foot here."

"Okay. You going to tell me what you're going to do?"

He cupped her ankle in his hand, lifting it a few inches. "Hold it." And she did. He slipped the stocking up her leg, stroking over her skin as he inched it upward. "Maybe. Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to be surprised?"

She thought about it as he repeated the gesture with her left leg.

"Little of both?"

"I can do that." He put her leg back down and looked at the boots. "Put them on."

She did so, but didn't fasten them. He knelt at her feet and did up the zipper and buckles.

"I want you to stand here." He showed her the spot in front of the dresser and next to the bed. "Right ankle here, left on there." As she got into position, facing the bathroom door mirror (he wanted her to be able to see everything), standing with her legs wide apart, he said, "I'm going to tie your ankles to the bed and the dresser. Keep you nicely open for me. Then we're going to play."

He knelt on the floor in front of her again, slowly dragging the ribbon off the bed, twining it between his fingers, then pulling gently, letting it slip through them. He wrapped it around her thigh, and once again, gently tugged, letting it slither over her skin in a silk-smooth embrace, and then tied that ankle. Same thing for the other leg, drawing out the experience of tying her, playing with the satin a little, kissing her inner thigh before standing up and circling behind her.

He pressed against her back, kissing her shoulders and the nape of her neck, and then gently turned her head to look at the dilators, keeping his fingers on her throat. He pitched his voice low, because his mouth is less than an inch from her ear, caressing her with hot breath as well as soft words. "Each one of them will go with a part of your body." His fingers trace from her left hand to breast. "Arms first."

She purred quietly at that.

He ghosts them over her lips. "Then mouth."

That got a smile.

His fingers settle just below her hips, scribing small circles. "Legs."

"Mmmm…" she looked very pleased.

His left hand slips over, first two fingers grazing her labia. "Then pussy."

She shivered a little at that, arching her back and rubbing against him. "Then what?"

He let go of her, and took one step over to the bed, grabbed the lube, and circled around to the front of her so she could see what he was doing easily. He flicked open the cap and squirted a bit into his fingers, stepping close to her, kissing her lips soft and light as his hand slid between her legs, smoothing the lube over her. She pressed into his touch, arms wrapping around the small of his back as his fingers stroked slickly over her skin.

He broke their kiss, keeping his lips less than an inch from hers, making sure she could feel his words, breath against wet, sensitized lips. "Then your arms will be tied over your head, legs spread wide, pussy so wet it'll be dripping down them. Then I'll stand in front of you, undress slowly, tease you with it. Then I'll slip my cock into your pussy, fuck you for a minute or two, while I kiss you senseless, getting myself really good and slick. Then I'll circle back around you, lean you into the ropes, slide the dilator out, and slam my cock into you until you see stars."

"Yes." She was grinning and her eyes had that heavy, dark look that went with arousal.

"Good." He kissed her one last time, then stepped away, grabbing the smallest of the toys, coating it with lube as she watched him.

"Pretty small."

"That's the idea. Slow and easy, one little step at a time." He kissed down her spine, licking the outlines of her tattoos, nibbling along the crest of her hip, then slowly worked the toy into her. Just because it's small doesn't mean he's going to rush this. Part of the whole point of this is to go slow, so that when he's done with the last one he can rush.

"Good?"

"Yeah, it's fine."

He smiled, took her hand in his, and began to kiss her fingers. He started at the tip of each one, a soft, wet kiss. Then he brought his tongue into the game with long, slow strokes, the sort of touch he likes when it's his dick on the receiving end of things. That got a soft moan.

He massaged her hand, stretching her fingers, pressing into the muscles, knowing exactly how good it feels to have someone hold your hand and really work on it when using your hands all the time is your job. That got a louder moan, one he recognized as more a signal of that-feels-good than rip-my-clothes- off-and-ravish-me.

Tim eased his way down to her wrist, kissing it softly, scraping his teeth over the pale white skin where her pulse thrummed. He took the first of the cuffs, fastened it around her wrist, and tied her hand high above her head. "Still good?"

She nodded. "Yeah, not too high up."

He smiled, and drug his fingers down her arm. She squirmed when he got to her armpit; that was a bit on the ticklish side, but the squirming got less defensive and a lot happier as he cupped his hand over her shoulder, gently squeezing those muscles, and a very happy moan joined the squirming as he ran his tongue over her upper arm and shoulder, while his hand found her breast.

Tim kept his fingers light and slow, soft, feathery touches that made Abby try to arch and push against him for more friction. He kissed her nipple, wrapping his lips around it in a wet embrace, then pulled back to blow on it.

Her skin lit with goosebumps.

"So pretty." He scraped his fingernails from her wrist to her nipple, and watched them get harder. He licked her arm, once again blowing on wet skin, enjoying the way her skin responded, reveling in the way she moaned when he did it.

Then a thought hit. Room temperature glass feels cold against warm skin. He picked up the second smallest dilator, it's about the size of his thumb.

"So soon?"

"Not quite. I want to make sure it's nice and warm." He traced it over her nipple and she jerked a little at the touch. "Not warm enough, yet?"

"It's pretty cool."

"Feel good?" He rolled it over her skin, following it with his tongue.

"Yeah."

"Good. How about this?" He slipped it into his mouth, holding it in place, while his fingers stroked over her nipples, pulling along them, after a minute, when it didn't feel cold on his tongue anymore, he took it out and traced it over her skin again, drawing complicated patterns down the inside of her arm. "Nice and warm?"

"Yeah. That feels really good."

"Feel better inside you?"

"I'd think so."

He reached for the lube and slicked it up, circling around behind her, kissing the back of her neck while he slid the first one out, and eased the second in.

She groaned as it slid home, and he smiled, taking her right hand in his and starting to kiss her fingers.

The second hand followed the first one pretty closely. But once both of her arms were tied, Tim decided to change things up a little. He kissed her shoulder and said, "Back in a sec."

"Tim!" She was not looking thrilled about that. He winked and sprinted downstairs to get his phone. He hadn't intended to take pictures, though for the life of him he can't figure out why he didn't think of it. Three seconds later he was back, with his phone in hand.

"You're so beautiful, I can't not get pictures." He got a few distance ones, her whole body spread out in front of him, and several close ups. His fingers trailed over her arm as he shot that. "So amazingly beautiful."

The curve of her shoulder and back caught his eye. He shot that with his fingers ghosting along her flesh.

He kissed her belly and made sure to get a picture of the dual curve of her belly and breast. "So soft and round." He nibbled around her hip and low back, shooting the concave curve of the small of her back and the lush convex of her tush. "Mmmmm…" he hummed as his lips slid over the top of her thigh.

He stood back up, saw the look on her face, and quickly kissed the tip of her nose. The expression on her face was mostly amused. She could take or leave the photographs of herself, but she knew he adored them, and his kiss was a gesture of _thanks for humoring me._

"Head back, eyes closed." She followed his directions, and he shot her from both sides. Front shot focusing on her face, breasts, and neck, back shot focusing on her hair dangling over her back. Then he licked her throat, from collarbone to jaw, fisted his hand in her hair, and got a shot of that, light gleaming on wet skin as he held her by her hair.

"God, you are so gloriously hot, Abby."

She opened her eyes and grinned at him. "Damn right, baby!"

"Next size up?"

"Please."

That was the one that went with mouth. Once he had eased it into place, he was left with a very pleasant dilemma, kiss Abby from a step back, focusing all attention on her lips and tongue, or step in close and rub his whole body against hers?

Just lips meant maintaining his own control would be significantly easier. As of this point, only his eyes, mouth, and fingers had been involved in the game, and he's got very good control when it comes to that level of stimulation. But once he stepped in close against her, his whole body would be pressed against hers, and his dick, which has been very aware of what's going on, will get into the game, and it's always in favor of getting to the sex part as fast as possible.

Of course, if he steps in close, that meant the sensation of lips, tongue, heat, pressure, the texture of his shirt, tie, and kilt on her skin. It meant her whole body got into the game, as well, and her whole body ramps things up pretty fast for her.

Yes, of all the dilemmas in the world, this was a very good one to have.

He stepped in close and kissed her. His lips and tongue soft and gentle on hers, but he pressed in tight, grinding his hips into hers, rubbing his chest against her breasts, and she gasped into his mouth as he did it.

His hands settled on her ass, anchoring her against him as he rocked against her, nubby wool kilt rubbing her mound, soft cotton of his shirt sliding over her nipples, and of course, as it does that for her, it does for him as well, and, _God_, it feels so good to have her tight against his body.

And yes, right now his dick was sending him very happy, _let's skip the rest of this, hot, wet pussy right here, right now, come on, go get it_, signals, and he was doing his best to ignore them, but the fact that he could feel her wet through the kilt was making his breath come fast and his hips roll in a very deliberate sort of way.

It was when he felt his hand head down to the edge of his kilt to pull it up that he broke the kiss and stepped back. Because he knew that if he didn't, this wasn't going to end the way he was hoping it would.

She made a soft, needy, half-whimper, half-moan sort of sound when he pulled away, and it was fairly likely he made a sound pretty similar to that, as well. Her eyes trailed down his body. She seemed to be just enjoying the view; he was pretty disheveled looking, rumpled, flushed, very prominent erection tenting the kilt. A smile lit her face. "You get to explain that to the dry cleaner."

He looked down, saw the large wet spot on the wool, and laughed. "Mental note, only fool around in the black one."

"Yep. We can't wash wool here."

That helped turn his arousal down a few notches. Got him back into full control of himself. Three down, three to go.

He snagged the fourth one from the dresser and held it against her lips. "Wanna see you suck it." And as she did, as her lips wrapped snugly around it, pulling it gently into her mouth, he eased the third one out, putting it back on the dresser.

He got a quick picture of that as well. "That's so hot it shouldn't be legal. Your mouth, all wet and pouty wrapped around anything like that. Makes me want to see your lips around me. Makes me want to cut you down, have you kneel, and blow me." He spread more lube over her, using his fingers to gently coat her inside and out, and seeing her sucking it while he could feel her tight on his fingers was almost too much. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and then took the dilator from her, and inched it in, slow and teasing as she moaned, low and steady. "But this is just too good to miss out on."

"Left leg next." He sat on the floor in front of her and pulled her stocking down to the top of her boot with his teeth, fingers following in its wake, scraping delicately over her skin with his nails.

That left his mouth about the middle of her calf, which seemed like a good place to start back up. He trailed open-mouthed, wet, sucking kisses up her leg, circling around to nibble the back of her knee, and continued up her inner thigh.

He got to the top of her thigh and feasted. She was so wet the inside of her leg was slick and tasted fabulous and smelled better, so he went to town on her, long, wet, lapping strokes with his tongue as he made sure to get every drop. When her leg was done he looked over at her pussy, wet, shiny, pink, open, begging him for touch. He very carefully took just the left outer lip into his mouth to suck lightly. He stayed away from her clit, from the inner lips, and made sure that his tongue slipped up and down along it as he sucked.

Abby panted, high-pitched almost whines of sound slipping out of her with each new suck.

"That's not my leg!" she finally got out.

He stopped and sat back on his heels. "Are you complaining?"

"Not exactly. But if you're not going to play with my leg, I've got some other parts that want the attention even more."

"Soon enough baby, soon enough. But how's this for a compromise?" He reached for the fifth one, four and a half inches around, wide enough it probably wouldn't slip out, and slid it between her legs, over her thigh, rolling it against the outer lip, then grazing it over the inner one before slowly nudging it into her vagina.

She whined at that too, a needy, you've-almost-hit-it, so-close, not-quite-there, this-is-torture sort of noise.

"Want me to touch here?" he asked and pressed his tongue to her clit, holding it there, firm pressure, no motion.

"Yes!" Her hips started to rock, and he took them in his hands, keeping her still.

"Nope. Not yet." She groaned at that, feeling his lips move against her as he spoke. "Two more."

Tim pulled the fourth one out, and slipped five in. Too fast. She tensed a little on five, which meant he hadn't spent enough time letting her body stretch and adjust, so for her right leg, he slowed even further down. He took his time removing the stocking, meandered slowly back up her leg again, took a few minutes to trace the outline of Kate's memorial tattoo on her hip with his tongue before settling back down between her legs to lick ever drop of her juice off her skin.

By the time he got to her right lip, she was trying to rock against him, and begging him to fuck her, and the long steady litany of "Please, I want you, feels so good, please, let me come, please!" just egged him on, made him go slower, focus his attention more carefully. One thing he was sure of was that when he reached for the sixth one, she would be more than ready for it.

He twisted the fifth one, wiggling it a little. She sucked in a fast breath and exhaled a long,"Tim, please!"

And that was enough teasing. He reached for the sixth dilator.

One thing he had been doing was inserting them by feel. He's a guy. Guys are visually oriented. He's an especially visually oriented guy, so he didn't watch it. Because he knows how it'll look. And he knows how watching it will _feel_. And he really didn't want to get too excited too fast and lose his control.

But for the last one, he was already kneeling between her legs, and he was so hard he can feel his pulse in his cock, and all he wanted to do was fuck, so he was going to watch.

And God, it looked amazing. No matter what it was, he loved watching her body take it in. Wet, flushed, pink skin, grasping the toy tight, slowly giving around it, drawing it into her, that sight killed him every time.

He didn't think he could get harder, but he'd been wrong.

"One rule for this part. Don't come." Okay, it was true he's telling her that, but he was also sort of reminding himself, as well. _Don't come._

"Tim!" She looked genuinely concerned at that, not sure she can do it.

"You do this to me all the time."

"You're used to it."

He smiled up at her and winked. "Just don't. It'll be worth it."

She whimpered again as he licked one of her lips from top to bottom, and licked back up from bottom to top.

"Have I told you how much I love this?" He sucked gently on her clit, pulling back a second later to talk some more, as his finger barely slipped into her, circling the entrance to her vagina. "You're so wet, and pink, and swollen." He blew on her clit. "And it's standing straight up." He licked it very lightly, and gave it another soft suck, feeling her pussy clench around him as he did it. "You close, baby?"

"Yes!"

"Don't come." He retreated from her pussy, licking her thighs, gently massaging her hips and ass, trying to get them to relax a little.

And when they did, when he felt the tension melt a bit, he went back to her clit with very soft, very light, barest-hints-of-touch flicks with the tip of his tongue. He kept at it, feeling her get tighter and squirm, breathing hard and loud, reciting the periodic table out-loud.

"Tim!"

He pulled back, stopping dead. "Too much?"

"Yeah, just, give me a minute to calm down, okay?"

He stood up, smiling, lips wet and shiny, and stepped close. "Kiss me."

"This is your idea of 'calm down?'"

"Yep. I want you to taste yourself on my lips and tongue. Then you're going to watch me get naked."

She inhaled long and slow, forcing herself to calm down. "This really isn't easy, you know?"

This time his smile was wicked. "Yeah, I'm vaguely familiar with how hard this is."

"Next time I'm in charge, I'm going to kill you."

"And I'll enjoy every second of it. Kiss me." And she did, lips on his hot and hard, licking and sucking his mouth, moaning into him, feeling the smooth cotton of his shirt against her nipples and the rougher wool of his kilt against her legs and pussy.

When he couldn't taste her anymore, he stepped back, and loosened his tie further, slipping the knot, untying it, and draping it over her neck, so the silk rested against her breasts, over her nipples.

"I can feel it every time I breathe."

"That was the idea." He popped the third button on his shirt (one and two had been undone since he got home). It wasn't much of a strip tease. He's a guy after all, so the extent of a strip tease he's willing to do is mostly just taking his clothing off slowly, and he's also, _eager_ is probably the best word, to get to the main event. Plus, there just isn't a slow, teasing way to take a kilt off when every drop of blood your body can spare from keeping you alive is in your dick. Though, when it comes down to it, he'd probably have had the same issue with pants, as well.

He snagged the bottom of his tie, yanking down, so it slipped over both nipples before falling to the floor. Then he stepped next to her, wrapping his hand in her hair, pulling her head back, kissing her mouth and the curve of her neck as his cock rubbed gently against her pussy.

"You feel so good. So soft and wet." He rubbed the shaft against her clit in long, lazy thrusts. She was whimpering again, eyes closed, so he whispered against her jaw as he kissed and nibbled along it. "Don't come, baby, hold on just a little longer." He shifted his angle, thrusting into her, hissing at the heat and slick wetness.

And it was true that he's teasing her almost beyond what she can endure, but right this second he's got himself on the edge of losing control, too. He wanted to just thrust like crazy, go full out, burying himself into her over and over until they're both screaming and coming.

Tim slowed himself down, thrusting slow, shallow, and deliberate.

She's flushed from her cheeks to her stomach, nipples hard and swollen, and he can actually feel her clit trailing over his dick as he eased in.

Enough teasing.

He circled behind her, adding even more lube to his dick as he slipped the dilator out. Less than one second passed between putting it down and thrusting into her as hard and fast as he could. Hot and slick and tight and fast and friction stole his breath, and for the first time he could remember he was totally silent as pleasure so intense it's practically pain washed through him.

His hands clenched on her hips, pulling her back onto him, thrusting as fast as his body can manage as she keened with pleasure, body almost breaking point tight on his.

He finally managed to suck in a breath, letting him speak again. "God, baby, fuck, you feel so good, come for me, God, want to feel you wrapped around my cock, coming so hard you can't see." He was reaching for her clit when he felt her body tighten further, pull in, and then release with a short scream.

And that first wave did it for him, sent him tumbling over the edge into throbbing, nerve-searing pleasure, as she clenched around him, crying his name.

She was sagging against him when he came down enough to be aware of the real world. For a minute he was awfully content to just stand pressed against her, holding her up as they both rode the oxytocin high. But after a few minutes the idea that this probably wasn't terribly comfortable for any long bit of time hit him.

"Can your legs hold you?"

She nodded. So he stepped back, pulling out slowly, and reached up to undo each wrist. He found the knife and just slit through the ribbon at her ankles, and quickly undid the boots.

That, and grabbing a tissue to wipe himself off, exhausted what was left of his energy. He collapsed onto their bed, while she headed to the bathroom to clean up.

A minute later she was curled on her side, he was spooned up behind her, and they were both asleep.


	159. Toothpaste

It was a blisteringly stupid argument.

The single stupidest argument of his life, and, having grown up with John McGee, that's saying a whole lot.

Tim decided, as he was driving, that the far edges of Mood Swing Abby, happy and sad, he can deal with pretty easily. Both of them just involve being available for lots of hugs, and possibly humor if it's appropriate. It's irritable, which leads to angry, where the landmines lay.

And currently he feels like he's had both legs blown off at the knee.

He was half way to Jimmy's when he realized that right now Jimmy probably isn't the guy to go complain to about his pregnant wife.

Sure, Jimmy's made it clear that he finds being treated like he's made out of glass annoying, and Tim gets that, he really does, but he's still not going to go over there and bitch to Jimmy about Abby being insane because she's pregnant.

Not until Jimmy's got at least one more healthy baby in his house is Tim going to say anything negative about a pregnant wife to him, and possibly not even after that.

So he swings through a highly illegal u-turn that would make Ziva proud, and heads toward Gibbs' house.

* * *

One of the great things about Gibbs is that he just raises his eyebrows when Tim walks straight over to the workbench, pours himself a scotch, (Shortly after the Shannon conversation, Tim noticed that a bottle of decent scotch ended up in the basement next to the bourbon.) at 8:45 in the morning, and shoots it back.

And for twenty minutes Tim just sat there on the second from the bottom step and calmed down.

And Gibbs let him, not saying anything, just quietly working on the boat, and occasionally looking at Tim to see if smoke was still pouring out of his ears.

After it was clear that he had calmed back down, (Sort of. Okay, no not really, but he at least had gotten from furious to ready to vent.) Gibbs leaned against the back of the boat and said, "So…"

"Toothpaste. I used up her toothpaste last night. By accident. I don't like hers, she doesn't like mine, but they're in almost identical tubes because they're just different flavors of the same brand and sometimes she puts hers on the left of the sink, next to mine. I was half asleep while I brushed my teeth and finished hers.

"And we've got a whole tube of mine. Because last week I noticed I was getting low and got more, but she wanted to wait to get more of hers until she was closer to out. But today, at five in the morning, when she decided she had to brush her teeth _right that second_, she won't use mine, even though she has like nine hundred times before, but today mine is apparently beyond revolting. So at five fucking thirty in the morning I'm at goddamn Target getting more fucking toothpaste because she's got to brush her teeth right this fucking second and can't use mine."

Gibbs knows where this is going. He's doing a very good job of not laughing, and the smile on his face is kind, if vastly amused.

"And of course I get the wrong damn toothpaste, because as I said, it's five goddamn thirty in the morning, and we worked past midnight last night, and I can barely see straight let alone tell the difference between peppermint and spearmint. She's lucky it actually was toothpaste and not hair gel.

"I get home, and now she's asleep. Which is what I want to be. Which is what I told her to do instead of brushing her teeth, which she told me she couldn't possibly do because her mouth tasted horrible. And I told her that if she went back to sleep for three more hours, I would go out and buy her, with a smile on my face and a spring in my step, all the goddamned toothpaste in entire the fucking store. But, no, she had to have toothpaste right that second. So, even though she was awake, and up, and in possession of not only a driver's license but two vehicles, I'm the one who has to get up and get the fucking toothpaste. So off I went, leaving our nice warm bed and go buy her more of it, slamming the door behind me.

"So, I'm home, with toothpaste, in peppermint, and she's taking up the whole damn bed and has already given me the wake-me-up-and-die warning, so I do not get into our nice, soft, comfortable, and warm bed. I go sleep on the couch, which is not nearly so comfy for sleeping if you haven't just had sex on it, and I'm pissed off, so it takes an hour to get settled, and I finally drop off, and two fucking minutes later she's awake and screeching about how I got the wrong damn toothpaste, and obviously I don't love her because I can't keep track of what sort of toothpaste she likes.

"So I take a deep breath, turn the other cheek, let her yell at me some more, but she was getting really screechy and mean, and look, no sleep, I'd had enough. So I go into my office and shut the door. And look, she has never, ever just walked into my office without knocking. She always asks permission to go in there, because that's where I go when I need to cool off. And me shutting the door on her should be a loud and clear I-need-my-space-because-I'm-about-to-lose-it signal.

"But she just barged right in, waving the toothpaste around, and I decided what she wanted to do was fight, just kicking me wasn't doing it for her, because who needs to spend more than half an hour yelling at someone else over toothpaste? So I had at her, said some really sarcastic things about how I got her a house, two rings, and had her lip print tattooed on my body, but yeah, toothpaste was the real sign of my everlasting devotion and obviously I was just in this for the sex, an as soon as she got old I was out of there, because otherwise I'd be happy and able to fetch precisely the right sort of toothpaste at five fucking thirty in the morning on no sleep, and she stared at me, dropped to her knees, I mean collapsed like a bag of wet oatmeal dropped from two stories up, and started bawling."

Gibbs winced. "Oh, God, Tim."

"Which was when I realized I had my foot so far down my throat I was kicking myself in the ass with it. And no, what she wanted to do was just yell me some more, not actually fight. I rushed over, apologizing like crazy, and she's sobbing, yelling at me to get out, so I got out."

Gibbs raised his hand to smack Tim upside the back of his head, looked at it, looked at him, shook his head, let it drop, and poured him another drink. "When you fuck up, you really fuck up."

"Yeah. Thanks. That was the part of this I didn't need a second opinion on."

"When you go back, make sure you've got the right damn toothpaste."

"That part I figured out on my own, too."

"What do you want a second opinion on?"

"How long do I hide out over here, and what the hell do I bring home besides Tom's Of Maine Spearmint Toothpaste?"

"Do you think I'd have three ex-wives if I knew the answer to that?"

Tim shrugged. "I was going to talk to Palmer, but…"

"Give him a call. Abby probably called him two minutes after you left, and he can give you a better idea of how much trouble you're in."

"But…" Tim's expression gets across why he's wary about doing that, but Gibbs flashes him a little dismissive gesture.

"Being useful is part of healing, part of what keeps you going. Let him be useful to you."

"Good point. Shannon ever completely flip out on you?"

"Yeah, but she had a good reason for it. She was five months pregnant when I got stationed in Nicaragua."

"Ugh."

"Yeah, I wasn't happy about that, either."

"What did you do?"

"Not much I could. They'd throw me in jail if I didn't report. It was only sixty days, but we didn't know that at the time. I was never really great about writing her. So I made sure she got a letter every single day I was away. Sure, some days I wrote more than one, so I had some back up, 'miss you, very busy, home soon' letters that I could send if I was too busy to write, but the only thing that helped was getting home while Kelly was still on the inside."

Tim got his phone out and hit Jimmy's contact button.

"You're fucked." Gibbs snorts back a quick laugh when he hears Jimmy's greeting.

"Good morning to you, too. Abby called, then?"

"No. Oh no, not called. She's here, crying on Breena, and Ziva should be here with six gallons of ice cream in about five minutes."

"Oh God."

Jimmy's quiet on the other end for about half a minute, then he says, "Okay, I'm out of the girls' earshot. What the hell is wrong with you? There is exactly one thing you never, ever, ever, EVER! say to a pregnant woman and that's any variation on the theme of 'I'm leaving.' You tell her that yes, she looks fat in those pants because she is fat, you tell her her butt is the size of the iceberg that took down the Titanic before you say that!"

"I was being sarcastic."

More silence on Jimmy's side. Tim's fairly sure he's rolling his eyes so hard they're about to fall out of his head.

"I'm at Gibbs' place. Feel like coming over and joining the how to get me the hell out of this confab?"

"As long as I can bring Molly, it's no problem."

Tim raises an eyebrow at Gibbs, and Gibbs smiles. Little girls are always welcome at his house.

"See you here in half an hour."

* * *

Gibbs and Tim head upstairs. While the basement may be the official gathering spot for heart to hearts, it's a really bad place for a twelve month old who is just learning how to walk.

Gibbs spends a few minutes shuffling about, finding some blocks and a few other simple toys he's got on hand for family gatherings. (He's been building little toys when he's looking for a side project since Tim and Abby got engaged, fairly sure that having things for babies to play with at his house would be a good thing. And so far, Molly Palmer seems to have enjoyed them. At least as much as an infant can enjoy wooden toys. She's mostly chewed on them.) He shoves the coffee table to the side, spreads a blanket on the floor, and puts the toys out.

"She's not actually walking yet, is she?" She hadn't been at the birthday party, but he knows little ones can go from crawling to walking awfully fast, and it's been two weeks.

"Not more than three steps at a go. But she's a lightning fast crawler."

Gibbs nods, picks up the coffee table, and puts it on its side, walling off the kitchen. Then he took two of his kitchen chairs and blocked off the stairs. He surveys the room, and yeah, it's not exactly baby proof, but there are three of them and one little girl, it'll do.

"Coffee?" Gibbs asks Tim.

"You have decaf?"

Gibbs flashes him an _are you insane or just really stupid _look.

Tim sighs. "I think it's abundantly clear that today the answer is stupid."

Gibbs laughs at that and heads to the kitchen. "How does Jimmy like his?"

"One third milk, two thirds coffee, no sugar." Tim follows him in, and sees Gibbs set up his coffeemaker with coffee from a new, full-sized bag of Black Death.

"I take it you liked it?"

Gibbs nods. "Stuff from Seattle was good, too."

"Make Jimmy's half and half then."

Thinking about Jimmy reminds Gibbs of something. "They gonna get the testing soon?"

"Yeah. Blood test on Tuesday." There are two kinds of Trisomy 13, and one of them is just random, and one you can carry a gene for. The blood test will tell them which kind Jonathon had. Trisomy 13 was something no one in their family ever wanted to know much about, but they're all well versed in it now.

"If they're carriers?"

"They're talking adopting. They want more kids. If adoption isn't an option, because they already have a child or Jimmy's diabetic or whatever, they can do in vitro and test the embryos to see if they've got the trisomy before implanting them. But I don't think they want to do that."

Gibbs nods again.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Jimmy was heading into Gibbs' house, Molly in his arms.

He just looked at Tim, shook his head, and put Molly down, unbundling her from her winter gear. Once Molly had been properly hugged and kissed hello by Uncle Tim and Uncle Jethro, Jimmy kissed her head, put her on the blanket, stacked some blocks up, and said, "Look, Uncle Jethro has toys for you!"

Then he stood up and smacked Tim, hard, upside the back of the head.

"You know what? When you piss your wife off, she comes to my house and cries on mine. You know what happens then? Breena gets pissed at me on Abby's behalf because I've got a y chromosome, too. On Monday, Tony's going to slap you, too, because Ziva's over there now, and all three of them are having a men-suck-and-here's-all-nineteen-million-reasons-w hy party."

Gibbs smiled and handed Jimmy his coffee.

"Thanks." He took a deep drink and practically choked on it. "What do you brew this out of? Roofing tar?" Jimmy headed into the kitchen, poured half of the coffee out and replaced it with more milk. "That'll pry your eyes open in the morning."

"That's the idea," Gibbs said.

Jimmy sat on the floor next to Molly, restacking the blocks she was very enthusiastically knocking down. "So the version of the story we got, between whimpering and hysterical sobbing, is that Abby went sort of insane, picked a fight with you about toothpaste, and then you blew up at her, told her you were just in it for the sex, couldn't stand being with someone as flakey as her, and that you were leaving, for someone younger and hotter, _and then you left_."

"She ordered me out of the house."

"I think you were supposed to stay."

"Great." Tim gritted his teeth, getting yelled at even more was not on the list of things he wanted to do. "I never said she was flakey."

"Subtext?" Jimmy asked. "Something about her thinking toothpaste was way too important?"

Tim cringed.

"And were you really dumb enough to actually say, 'I'm leaving' let alone 'younger' or 'hotter'?'"

Tim sat down on the sofa. Gibbs took the armchair, watching them.

Tim sighed, rolled his eyes, and hunched a little, making sure his body language let them know that he was convinced he'd behaved badly and was embarrassed about it. "I think I actually said… and remember, no sleep, and she's been yelling at me for at least half an hour at this point about toothpaste and how I must not love her because I got the wrong kind…" and he sighed, closed his eyes, rested his head in his hand, rubbing his forehead, and said, "The house, the rings, the marriage, the tattoos, the two fucking tattoos, one of which is your lips branded onto my arm, forever, the love poems, the being here every goddamn day, rearranging my entire career so I can be here with you and our child, that's all meaningless shit, I'm really just here for the kinky sex and as soon as your ass gets droopy and your tits saggy I'm trading up for a younger model and getting the hell away from this insanity. And God knows, when I knock her up, and she's being crazy, I'll get her the right fucking toothpaste!"

Both of them just stared at him, eyes very wide.

Jimmy looked at Gibbs and said, "Well, at least you know a good divorce lawyer, right? God! Tim… just…" And Jimmy just sat there staring at him, looking like he was coming up with different ideas of things to say, but not saying them. "Remind me not to piss you off when you haven't had any sleep. Damn."

"Thank you, Jimmy, that's wildly helpful."

"Look, I've said some dumb things to Breena over the years, but there's dumb and then there's disemboweling yourself with your own tongue and then lighting your own not-quite-dead-body on fire."

Gibbs was still staring at him. Then he stood up and hit him. This time he did smack Tim upside the back of the head, hard, really hard, like minor whiplash, hard.

"Ow!"

"Two years ago, I would have beaten the hell out of you for that."

Tim nods, wincing, rubbing his neck. "How do I fix this?"

Gibbs shrugged. Sure, he's had some awful fights with women, but he's utterly useless at something like this. Granted he's never said anything mean to any of his wives, because saying something mean would have require him to talk when he was angry, and that just didn't happen. So, even if he was good at working out a fight with a woman, which he isn't, this particular version of making up isn't in his wheelhouse.

Jimmy nodded at Gibbs, flashed him an _I've got this_ look, and said, "Okay, the only good thing on this is that Abby knows she went insane and picked a fight with you. She's still with it enough that she sort of thinks this is her fault and you went bonkers on the overreacting side of it. But, look, you can't buy your way out of this, no flowers or jewelry on earth is going to help."

"Yeah, I know."

"Good. You want my advice, get a nap! Get a long damn nap because you aren't going to bed anytime soon and you need your brain functional for this. Then you call her and beg her to talk to her, and you explain to her how angry the idea that you might not love her made you, and you explain why the idea that you might not love her makes you angry, and you lay down on the floor at her feet and explain to her how she's your sun and the only thing that keeps you alive is being able to revolve around her, and remember when we were talking about your vows and you didn't want to get too sappy?"

Tim nods.

"Time to channel your inner maple tree, Tim. She likes cute and fluffy bunnies, so it's time for you to be the cutest, fluffiest damn bunny anyone has ever seen.

"And then you're going to deal with the fact that she is going to be mad at you, probably for a while, because, honestly that's the worst thing I've ever heard of a guy saying to his wife—"

"Jimmy, you pick up the bodies of wives who get killed by their husbands."

"Let me finish—who isn't a complete and total asshole. And after that you are going to sincerely apologize for ever saying it, let alone thinking it, and make it abundantly clear that you know no matter how sarcastic you were being there are some things you cannot ever say, and that is one of them."

"And then give her the right toothpaste," Gibbs added. "And make sure she stays stocked with it."

"Good point. And tomorrow, or the day after, better yet next week, once you are both fully calmed down, you are going to pull out all the stops and do something insanely nice for her. Preferably something you don't particularly like doing but she does. With Breena this would be the point where I'd call in sick for both of us, take Molly to daycare, whip out half a dozen chick flicks, that chocolate covered caramel popcorn stuff she loves that just looking at jerks my blood sugar up fifty points, and we watch lame movies in bed all day." Jimmy shifted his gaze to Gibbs, "And that doesn't leave this room. Ducky does not need to know I haven't actually been sick in three years."

Gibbs shrugged. If Palmer thought he was pulling one over on Ducky, it didn't hurt anything.

* * *

An hour later, as Tim was laying on Gibbs' sofa, ready for some sack time, Gibbs walked Jimmy and Molly to his car.

Once Jimmy had her strapped in, Gibbs said to him, "You're a good husband, Jimmy. Good father. If you ever want to talk, my basement's always open."

"Uh… thanks. You're doing a good job as a father-in-law, too."

Gibbs nodded. "Always hoped I would."

And that's when what Gibbs meant by his invitation hit Jimmy.

"Oh."

Gibbs nodded again, seeing Jimmy get it. "Breena's welcome, too. Sometimes it's good to have someone who's been through it around."

* * *

Tim woke up four hours later feeling mostly just tired. But it was getting onto three, and no matter how much hiding at Gibbs place appealed to him, it was time to bite the bullet, call Abby, and talk to her. So he rolled over, took his phone off the coffee table, and punched her contact button.

A second later he heard her voice. "Tim."

"Can I come home?"

"Why are you asking?" She mostly sounded tired, too, though there was the rasp in her voice that went with hard crying.

"You told me to leave. I want to come back, but I won't until I know it's okay."

"You left!" There's a hint of crying about to begin again in her voice.

"You told me to. You told me to get the hell out of our house. Told me you didn't want to see me. But I want to be home, with you. Can I come home?"

"Yes."

* * *

Abby was sitting on the floor, in front of the sofa, looking in the direction of the TV, but he didn't think she was watching it.

He sat down next to her, and she looked at the Target bag in his hand.

"What's that?"

"Tom's of Maine, spearmint, whole mouth care, about a year's worth. And a bag of organic frozen wild blueberries. I know you're low on them. You want me to put them in the freezer?"

She shook her head, took the bag, and opened it, popping one in her mouth. "Not low, out."

He watched her chew, seeing the purple-blue stains starting on her fingers.

"I'm sorry. Really sorry."

She shrugged. "Why should you be sorry? You aren't the one who went insane over toothpaste."

"I promised to spend the rest of my life putting you first, and I didn't. I was tired and angry and took it out on you."

She shrugged again and offered him a blueberry. He ate it from her fingers, considering the offer a very good sign. "I was completely bat-shit crazy and you took it longer than you should have had to. I promised to be kind and treat you with respect, and I didn't. You left the room and closed the door behind you to avoid snapping at me, and I kept yelling at you. The worst part was, I knew I was doing it. I knew that it was insane, I mean, it's toothpaste, but I couldn't make myself stop. And I know, everything you went through with your dad, and how you'd try to get away from him and he'd just follow, egging you on. I know that. And I just couldn't make myself stop. I was so angry, stupidly angry, and I wanted you that angry, too."

"Why? Why were you even up at 5:00?"

"Nightmare."

"Oh." He knows she's been having really intense dreams since she's been pregnant. He stood up. "Let me get you a spoon." Eating frozen blueberries with your fingers isn't very comfortable after a few bites. A minute later he was back with a big bowl and a spoon and sat next to her again.

She poured the blueberries into the bowl and ate a few more bites.

"Want to tell me about it?"

She's staring at the TV again. Very determinedly not looking at him as she says this. "You left. She was young and pretty and normal and you left."

Tim's head dropped back onto the sofa cushion as he said, "Shit."

"I was so angry when I woke up. You'd been hiding her, fooling around behind my back, and we were fighting, screaming fighting because you were leaving. And my mouth really tasted bad, and all I could think about was maybe if I could brush my teeth I could get anchored back in reality, but no toothpaste. And dream you and real you were too similar, and I just… I couldn't sort it out. I couldn't block out how angry I was.

"And this little voice in the back of my head was yelling at me, too, telling me it's not your fault that I was dreaming about you leaving, that real you isn't going anywhere, but I was still so angry, and then…"

"I said the worst possible thing at the worst possible time in the history of worst possible things."

"Yeah. And then you walked out."

"You told me to leave. Screamed it."

"I know. You still left."

He nodded. "Sometimes I have to leave. But I'm always going to come back, you know that, right? As long as I'm alive, I'm always going to come back. I'll be here to get old and saggy with you. Every single day for the rest of my life, I'm coming back to you. You're my one and only."

"I'm your Shannon."

"No." He looked her straight in the eyes. "Shannon is Gibbs' Abby."

She smiled at that and offered him a spoon full of blueberries. He chewed them for a moment, swallowed, and kissed her gently. She sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned into him.

They sat there, quietly, resting against each other for a moment before another thought hit him.

"Are Ziva and Breena going to beat the hell out of me the next time they see me?"

"Yeah." She nodded. That was a foregone conclusion. Ziva was actually getting up to go beat the hell out of him (because Abby had just gotten to the part of the story with the _I'll get her the right fucking toothpaste_) when Jimmy was getting ready to go to Gibbs' house and he convinced her to not do it.

"When I finally told them what I said, Gibbs hit me so hard upside the back of the head I think I've got whiplash."

"You actually told them?"

"I wanted help on how to fix it. Can't fix the problem if you don't know what it is."

"Can't believe you told them."

"Just the last bit. Jimmy wanted to know if the words 'I'm leaving, younger, or hotter' actually came out of my mouth."

"Oh." She ate another bite of blueberries. "I'm sorry I was yelling at you. Sorry I picked a fight. Sorry I didn't let you be alone."

"I'm sorry I didn't hold it together better."

"No." She shook her head at that. "You can be sorry for being mean, or sorry for not just getting in your car and driving off, but no, you shouldn't have to deal with someone yelling at you when you've done nothing wrong. It's not okay for me to take my anger out on you."

"I'm sorry I was mean. I'm sorry I was sarcastic. And I'm sorry I didn't ask why you were angry in the first place. Really sorry I didn't do that."

"That probably would have helped."

He nodded. "Are we okay?"

"Yeah."

He put his arm around her shoulder, and she snuggled into him, offering him another bite of the blueberries. They sat there quietly, for a few minutes.

"You know, I've heard good things about make-up sex," Abby said.

Tim rose one eyebrow, mostly he just felt tired and emotionally battered. "You want to have sex?"

"No. Not really. Just want to sit here."

"Me, too." He thought about that for a moment and checked the clock. It was still only four in the afternoon. "Later?"

"Yes."


	160. The Basement

Jimmy's never been in Gibbs' basement. Of course he's heard about the boats. Who hasn't? But he always sort of figured that, well, they were some sort of exaggeration. Like, he builds model boats and they leave the word model out. Or they're the little two seat kind you go fishing in. You know, the kind of joke Tony would tell, mild hazing for the credulous.

He didn't really expect to see a full-sized boat sitting in the basement.

And, like with anything else that takes him by surprise, he asked about it.

"How do you get it out?"

"Palmer?" Gibbs sounds a little surprised to see Jimmy so soon, and honestly Jimmy's a little surprised to be here so soon as well. But Gibbs invited him, Molly's asleep, Ziva and Abby are no longer at his place, Breena told him to go, and he needs to talk.

Gibbs climbs off of the Shannon. He's just about got the temporary decking done. Another week and she'll be ready for outside.

"It's a boat. And you've got no doors."

"She. Boats are girls. This one's name is Shannon." Though really, he's stalling, debating on whether it's time to give up that secret, not that he was going to hold it all that much longer, but... _Tell him. _It'll be a good sign that Jimmy's really welcome down here. He points behind himself. "That wall was originally designed with garage doors, so it's not load bearing. Garage doors aren't good for wood working, too drafty, the wood gets too damp or too dry. So I ripped them out and replaced them with drywall. When the boat's done, I rip it out again, take her out, and then put it back up. Only takes about three days, but it keeps my shop in good shape."

"Oh." He looks at the boat and gently traces his fingers over her hull. "Who's Shannon?"

That shocks Gibbs, he thought everyone at NCIS knew that by now. "First wife."

Jimmy nods. He knows that story; he just didn't know her name. Gibbs watches him make a connection in his mind, and then he remembers the boat that came in after Mike got into that gun fight. "The Kelly, that was named after your daughter."

"Yeah."

"How long ago did it happen?"

"Twenty-four years yesterday."

"Oh. Do you… do anything?"

"Not for a long time." Which isn't entirely true. He talks to what he's fairly sure is an imaginary Shannon on the anniversary of their death. But like the version of Mike that shows up from time to time, he's not entirely certain if she's in his head or if he's talking to a ghost. And honestly, at this point, he doesn't care, seeing her makes him feel better, helps to clear his head, and gives him hope. "But I always know when February 28th is. It never sneaks up on me."

Jimmy nods, fairly sure that January 8th will never sneak up on him. "I can deal with the sorrow, and Tim's right, though I thought it was insane, but fighting helps with the anger, but I can't shake the fear. I want them near me all the time. I've practically bubble-wrapped every surface in our house since Molly's started walking. And I'm just so scared for them all the time."

Gibbs nods back at him.

"Will it get better?"

"Sure. If you let it. But you've got to control it, because otherwise they'll feel smothered by it."

Jimmy nods at that. Breena's starting to get annoyed with the way he's constantly hovering. She understands, she feels that constant fear too, but him underfoot is starting to wear on her, which was a pretty big chunk of her tossing him out of the house, telling him to go talk to Gibbs. "How do you control it?"

Gibbs drags the two stools out from under his work bench and offers one to Jimmy. He also gestures to the bottles on the workbench, but Jimmy shakes his head as he sits, so he doesn't pour for either of them. "Best I can tell, you can't make it go away or tame it, only time does that. Every day you come home and find everything normal and everyone okay, gets you back in the habit of expecting okay, and that'll eventually tame the fear. Right now, all you can do is not let it own you. Right now, all you can control is how you act.

"Being a parent isn't for cowards. Nothing else will ever hurt like this, and nobody who hasn't been there will ever have a clue. And it's normal to want to protect yourself from ever feeling this way again."

Gibbs looks at the bourbon and the coffee cup next to it. Having a drink to go with this is really tempting. But if Jimmy's coping without drinking, supporting that is probably a good thing. So once again, he doesn't pour himself a shot.

"I didn't let myself love anyone for a decade after they died. Intentionally did not have any more children, and stayed away from women who had them. Abby was the first person I let in."

Jimmy just stares at him, and Gibbs is half expecting him to make some off color comment, but all he does is wait, and it occurs to him, that after more than a decade of working with Ducky, Jimmy is probably a pretty good listener.

"And that was dumb as hell. The fear won. It owned me, shaped my actions, and made sure that I and all three of my ex-wives were miserable. I didn't lose anyone during that decade, but besides Mike, I didn't gain anyone, either."

"You met Ducky then, right?"

"Yeah. And we were friends. But I never told him about my girls, never let him into my life until years later. Everyone knew I was a Marine, a sniper, a good cop, dependable in a tight situation, would marry any red-head that crossed my path for about ten minutes, and that was it."

Jimmy looks at Gibbs' left hand.

"You're still scared."

Gibbs rubs his thumb over his wedding ring. "Yeah. It doesn't go away. It never goes away. It does get better. Not letting it own you gets easier, too. But it's always going to be there."

"That's not encouraging."

"If you wanted feel good bullshit, you're in the wrong place."

"I know. I know the everything'll be all right, sparkly unicorns frolicking in meadows under double rainbows is crap. But I want it!" Jimmy looks away from Gibbs and sighs, then looks back at him. "I had as close to it as anyone ever gets, you know? And now it's gone."

"Yeah." Gibbs nods, smiles a little, not happy, but understanding where Jimmy's coming from. "I know. I had it, too, and then it was gone, and you can't go back, but you remember it, dream about it, and you feel like you're still there, and you wake up, and you aren't."

"Exactly."

"Jimmy, you can't go back, and the future you wanted with Jon is gone, but your wife is still here, and Molly is still here, and you're still here. You're never going to be the same man; you'll be scarred for the rest of your life, but you're doing what you need to do to move forward. You're grieving but still being the man your wife and daughter need. You're never going to be the same, but eventually you are going to be all right."

"That's more encouraging."

Gibbs smiles at him. "Give Tim a call. Tell him to take Molly for a long weekend. Go away with your wife and remember why you married her, let her remember why she married you."

"How did you even know about that?"

Gibbs smiles again, giving him the _I know everything _look.

"I'll end up texting every two hours to see how she is."

"You think Tim and Abby will mind? He'll set up that security camera he got you for your wedding at his place if you ask him to. Go. Do something nice for Breena. Don't let the fear own you. I'm never going to tell you to take off work again, so take advantage of it."

Jimmy doesn't look convinced by this.

"You'll go, you'll worry, but you'll also have time where you enjoy yourself and Breena, and you won't be thinking about anything other than enjoying her. You'll feel bad about it when you realize it's happening, but that's normal. Go and enjoy it anyway. And when you come home everything will be fine. Molly will be okay. And you'll have an easier time with her out of your sight because it will be fine when you get home."

Jimmy pulls his phone out of his pocket, stares at it and was just about to hit Tim's contact button when Gibbs adds, "But not next weekend, because Shannon's almost ready to move outside, and on Saturday bootcamp is over here, and you, Tim, and Tony are helping me rip down that wall."

Jimmy nods, still looking up from the phone as he realizes something. "When did you start calling him Tony?"

"When he asked permission to marry Ziva."

"Oh. I prefer Jimmy to Palmer. Especially when I'm not at work."

"Okay, Jimmy. When we're not at work, Jethro is fine."

Jimmy hit Tim's contact button on his phone. "Hey, Tim…"


	161. I Meant To

Tim usually wakes up pretty easily. There's a sort of moment where he switches from dreaming to just lying in bed, and from there a fairly gentle slide into fully awake. And for the most part it's a pretty quick transition, usually a matter of two or three minutes.

Some mornings, and those are mornings he very much appreciates, Abby gives him a hand on sliding from dreaming into fully awake. Occasionally he returns the favor, but most of the time she wakes up before he does, so she's in charge of morning sex. However it happens, making love is definitely his favorite way to go from asleep to awake.

Other mornings, his phone or Gibbs jerks him from dreaming into full on awake. Those mornings he transitions in a matter of seconds. He's significantly less happy about those mornings, but well, it's all part of the job.

So, for the most part, he's pretty good at not getting stuck between dreaming and awake.

But today he can't shake it. The little awake part of his mind knows he's at home, in bed, but the sleeping part of his mind is stuck in the freezer again. He's cold. So cold. Somehow colder than he was when he was there for real, and like when it really happened every single part of his body aches. And to make it worse, Abby's there too, and he's clinging to her, trying to keep her warm, but she's already icy cold, and he can't warm her up, can't warm up at all. He's shivering, hurting, and panicking because he can't get out of it.

"God, Tim…" Abby's trying to shove him off of her, and he's gripping onto her tighter. She had been sleeping pretty comfortably, but suddenly Tim turned into a scalding hot boa constrictor, and she feels like she's going to suffocate or possibly drown in sweat. "Tim! Wake up." She shakes him while trying to scoot further away. "God, baby, you're on fire. Come, on wake up."

That finally brakes through the dream, and he's fully back in bed. But he's still bone-deep cold, hurts all over, tired, weak, and wet.

"Tim?" Abby feels him loosen his grip and assumes that means he's awake. She carefully gets up, tucking the blankets around him tighter while rejoicing at no longer being two seconds away from over-heating.

"Mrgh."

His eyes are glassy and not tracking well. His skin is flushed and sweaty. And she's not sure why she asked, because it's obvious he's sick, but she did anyway. "Are you feeling okay?"

"No." He starts shivering and begins to cough.

"Did you get a flu shot this year?"

He coughs, hard. "I meant to." More coughing. He thinks about it and comes to the conclusion that he'd planned on doing it and ended up getting wedding rings instead, and from there it pretty much slipped his mind.

She heads off for a second and comes back with more blankets, tucking him in further, stroking his shoulders. He curls into a ball, hugging his knees to his chest, and tries to get warm.

"What's your doctor's name?" He opens his eyes. She has his phone in hand.

He thinks about that for a good long minute. He hasn't seen the guy since Jethro tried to eat him alive, and right now he can't come up with his name. "I don't know."

"How can you not know?"

"Besides going to the emergency room, I haven't needed one in years."

"Great." She taps the screen of his phone, and a minute later he hears, "Hey Ducky, sorry to get you up on a Sunday morning… Oh good… Look, I think Tim has the flu, and he's in no condition to get out of bed to go to a doctor's office. Would you be willing to make a house call? Thanks, Ducky."

Time goes wonky for Tim after that, but eventually he notices that she's gotten dressed, a shower, and is snuggled up behind him on the outside of the blankets. And with that, something else occurs to him. "If I have the flu, you should get out of here."

"I got my shot this year."

"Doesn't always work. Don't want you getting sick, too."

"I'll risk it."

He tries to roll over to face her, and manages to get, well, his head turned in her general direction, the rest of his body had no interest whatsoever in getting out of the fetal position it was wrapped into. "Get the fuck out of here, now! I do not want you getting sick!"

She smiles in a gently condescending way, pets his hair, and says, "That would have been way more impressive if your teeth hadn't been chattering." He groans, coughs, and shivers some more. She kisses the top of his head. "But it's good to know your fever is so high you've lost the ability to think clearly. I can add that to the list of symptoms to tell Ducky about. Tim, you spent the last…" she checks the clock… "eleven hours breathing on me. And last night I had your tongue, fingers, and cock in my mouth. (Turns out make up sex was a whole lot of fun.) And you spent a good twenty minutes licking all of me, too. Either the vaccine'll work or it won't, but the me-not-getting-sick-from-you ship sailed the day before yesterday." She pets him again, hoping gentle stroking feels good on aching muscles, and finishes with, "Ducky'll be here soon, and if you've got the flu, he can give you, and maybe me, I'll have to go look that up, some Tamiflu, and that will help. I'm going to go make some breakfast, do you want to eat anything?"

Yes, that's rational. But that doesn't mean he has to like it. So he sounds a little sulky when he says, "No."

"Drink?"

That gets his attention. A drink means he can get something hot into him, maybe warm up a little. "Hot. Don't care what it is. Hot."

"One steaming hot something will be up in a minute."

It may have been a minute. Could have been an hour. He's got no idea. The only thing he's paying attention to is the way muscles he didn't even know he had were aching and how much he absolutely loathes being cold. When she came back with the cup of… hot chocolate he thinks, (It smells sweet and chocolate-y.) he doesn't want to get out from under the blankets enough to drink it, but he also doesn't want to have something so wonderfully hot sitting so close to him, and not drink it.

It's likely he's sort of pouting at the drink.

He's kind of aware of the fact that Abby must have brought it up, because he can see it on his bedside table, but she didn't appear to be in their room.

Then he feels the bed dip, (which is when it occurs to him that his eyes are probably closed, which brought up another troubling thought, namely, how is he looking at the hot chocolate if his eyes are closed?) and a straw presses against his lips, and then glorious hot, hot, hot liquid slips into his body, and no it doesn't help the shivers, and he's still bone deep cold, but at least there's a little warmth in the world, and by that point nothing else in the universe mattered.

* * *

She's petting his forehead and cheek, and he really wants to rest against her hand, take comfort in her skin on his, but right now her hand feels like ice.

"Abby, you're so cold."

She jerks her hand back. "It doesn't feel good?"

"Not right now."

"Sorry." She gets up, and he hears the sound of water running. A minute later, she's back. "Here."

It's a hot water bottle wrapped in a towel; it's snuggly and warm, so it's beyond brilliant right this second. He purrs at it and unclenches from the little ball he's curled into just enough to be able to hug it, and from there he pretty much checks out.

* * *

"Timothy." A soft and once again, really cold, hand on his forehead went with his name. Tim opened an eye, saw Ducky looking at Abby. "Abigail, do you have a thermometer?"

"Yeah." She headed over to her side of the bed and got it. Ducky looked at it curiously. Tim's vaguely amused by the idea that Ducky probably hasn't seen one jerry-rigged with duct tape and electronics the way theirs is. Abby saw the way Ducky was looking at it. "We were using it for getting pregnant. Tim modified it so it automatically uploads my temperatures to a program that keeps track of everything."

"Ah. Let's get your temperature, Timothy." He more or less just let Ducky manhandle him. A few seconds later Ducky said, "104.2, that's awfully high. Can you sit up?"

He managed it. He really didn't want to do it, most of his body was sending him, _What the hell is wrong with you? Do not try to move. Just lay here and shiver_ signals, but he eventually got his arms unlocked from around his legs, his legs away from his chest, and his body into a somewhat upright position, but once he did that, waves of scalding cold hit him because getting upright meant the blankets were no longer wrapped around him.

So, he was sitting up (noticing that Abby's keeping him upright, and he was suddenly suspicious that without her help he'd be lying down again) and utterly miserable, shaking, flushed, cursing quietly, and wishing he was dead.

And yeah, he did shriek and jump when Ducky pressed the stethoscope against this chest. There is no way he doesn't keep that thing stored in a vat of liquid nitrogen. It's so cold he's expecting to see his skin come off, stuck to it, when Ducky pulled it away. But once he pulled it away, Abby gently eased him back to lying down, Ducky wrapped two of the blankets around him, and took the other ones away.

That involved cursing on Tim's part, as well. At least, he thought he was cursing. Ducky and Abby were talking to each other, not really paying attention to him. In retrospect, he may have been moaning in a pitiful manner.

Then Ducky knelt down on the floor in front of their bed, making sure he was eye to eye with Tim and said, slowly and carefully, "Timothy, you have a very high fever. I know you don't like the way this feels, but bundling you up further just exacerbates the problem. You're at 104.2 and 104 is when I usually suggest people go to the emergency room. I believe Abigail is right, and that you do have the flu. My hope is that in an effort to avoid chill, you've bundled yourself up so thoroughly that you're cooking yourself. So we are going to see if we can get your temperature down here at home. Which means there will be regular doses of Tylenol or Advil, no more huddling under every blanket in the house, and Abby's going to rub you down with a lukewarm wash cloth."

"No." And sure, he may not have been cursing out loud, but he was awfully sure that came out loud and clear. Just the idea of a cold, wet wash cloth made him want to curl into a defensive ball and die.

"Look at me, Timothy. If your temperature isn't at under 103.5 in an hour, you are going to the hospital. If it's not under 103 in two hours, you are going to the hospital. Because if you stay as hot as you are for much longer than that the proteins in your body will start to unravel in response to the heat. That will cripple or kill you."

Tim moaned, which wasn't exactly ascent, but was about all the response he could muster. Then Abby was holding two pills for him, and he took them. He thought he said something about just seeing if the fewer blankets and Tylenol would do the trick but next thing he knew she was rubbing something cold and wet down his arm and he was expressing monumental displeasure at that, because right that second, he'd rather have his brain melt than be wiped down with a cool washcloth.

He wasn't sure if Ducky stuck around for the sponge bath. He does know it took about seventeen weeks, and that Abby was way more thorough than she needed to be. For example, he really didn't need the area between his toes wiped, let alone any other part of his body. Let alone twice. Or maybe three times. It felt like three times. Whatever it was, it was god awful cold and wet and took forever and he hated every second of it.

It's true that as a general principal Tim's all in favor of nice, new, crisp, clean sheets, but not today. He thought the cold, wet torture was over, (Abby blotted him dry with a towel) and then next thing he knew he was being rolled around a bit and found himself, slightly damp, on cool, clean sheets.

But it was also true that his head felt a little clearer, and while he wanted to pout about being cold, he at least now understood why they were doing it to him, which meant there was significantly less cursing coming out of him as Abby draped a light blanket over him, so he supposed that was a step in the right direction.

She took his temperature again, and Ducky appeared out of nowhere (maybe he had stuck around for the sponge bath?) and declared him at 103.6, which pleased both of them, and probably would have pleased Tim, but in that getting sponged off and yelling about it had completely exhausted him, he fell asleep before she got the read out.

* * *

He woke up again, cold, shivery, aching, miserable in every possible definition of the word. It took him a minute to figure out why he was awake, but then it registered that Abby was trying to get him to sit up some to take more pills.

He pulled himself up, thought about taking the cup from her, but decided he'd just slosh whatever was in it all over the place, and let her feed him the pills and orange juice.

And then he went back to sleep again.

* * *

The next time he woke up, he woke on his own. The light was on the other side of the room, so it had to be afternoon. He just lay there for a while. One of the weird things about being sick is that it completely fries his time sense. He had no idea how long he lay there.

He was still awfully cold, and was working up the energy to lift up his head and look for another blanket when he remembered why he only had two of them. The thermometer was still on his bedside table, so he very carefully reached for it, keeping as much of his arm under the blankets for as long as he could, and checked for himself. 102.9. That's still higher than any fever he remembers having before, but it's lower than it was, and he's not feeling so horrendously loopy.

No, not loopy. Embarrassed as hell, because he was starting to remember what he thinks he might have been saying when he was getting wiped down, and well, he might not like his dad by any stretch of the imagination, but years of living with the man meant that when he put his mind to it, he can really curse up a blue streak.

"Hey."

"Abby." This was when he noticed she was lying on her side of the bed, on top of the blankets, reading, and he reassessed how loopy he was. Obviously, he still wasn't all there if he missed that.

"You feeling any better?"

"I think so." Talking was a bad plan, that made him cough. She saw the thermometer in his hand and checked his temperature.

"It's down, good. You had Ducky and I pretty scared for a little while there. What do you remember?"

"Cold, wet," cough, cough, "saying terrible things," cough, "really cold," cough, "still cold," cough.

"Okay, you've got to stop talking. Ducky's still here, he wanted to talk to you once you were awake enough to follow a conversation. Think you can do that?"

Tim nodded.

She headed out and a bit later Ducky was back.

He smiled at Tim, touched his head, and nodded a bit. "Better. Not good, but better. I want you to listen to me."

Tim nodded again.

"I believe Abby is right and that you have the flu. You've already gotten your first dose of Tamiflu. In an effort to keep your fever down, she's giving you Tylenol every four hours, and making sure you don't burrow under every blanket in the house. Your job is to take your pills, lie in this bed, drink plenty of fluids, and rest.

"If I see you at NCIS at any time in the next week, I will not only tell the Director that you are unfit to work, I will also personally slap you upside the head for going in, and Jethro for not immediately sending you home. If you get up too soon, you risk coming down with pneumonia. If you get pneumonia, you can give that to Abby. We can treat the flu and keep her from getting sick with it. If you come down with pneumonia, the only way to keep her from getting it is to have her go stay with Jimmy and Breena. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to stay in bed and rest?"

"Yes."

"Good." Ducky stood back up and faced Abby, which was when Tim checked out again. He was vaguely aware of the fact that Ducky was still talking to Abby, but he missed most of it. Actually, he missed most of the rest of Sunday. The main thing he remembers are periods of being very cold and shivery interspersed with taking more Tylenol and sleeping.


	162. Monday?

He's guessing it's Monday (though it's dark out, so it could be late Sunday) when Abby says to him, "Tim, we've got a case. I've got to go into work. You going to be okay on your own?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be home soon as I can. You've still got a fever so you need to keep taking Tylenol every four hours."

"Okay." He's feeling really sleepy and doesn't want to do anything besides nap. He doesn't cough, hurt, or shiver when he's asleep, or if he does, he's not aware of it, so asleep is currently his favorite thing.

"Your phone is going to buzz every four hours, that's why it's doing it. There's Tylenol and a six pack of water on your nightstand." He looks over and, yes, there is.

"Okay."

"You want me to call and remind you?"

The crabby part of his mind is pretty much ready to snap at her to leave him alone and just let him sleep. The rational part of his mind is realizing that he's likely to forget why his phone is buzzing or sleep through it, so yeah, reminders might be a good plan.

"Yeah."

"Okay. You start to feel worse, you call me, okay?"

"Sure."

* * *

It was light, so it had to be Monday now.

Tim was firmly convinced that if Hell does exist, and if he ends up there, it'll be cold. He hates cold. Cold is the enemy to be fought at every and any opportunity and as soon as he's feeling better they're both resigning and moving to Savannah where, on a really brutal day, it gets into the low 50s.

And then they're never leaving again.

He might be a bit on the delirious side again, because it's possible he was telling Abby about their new place in Savannah, he was definitely thinking about it, laying out on a recliner in the backyard, letting hot, humid air and sunshine beat down on him, when Ziva came in with something that smelled good and said, "McGee?"

"Ziva?"

"Abby wanted me to check in on you. I brought you some food. Chicken soup. Who were you talking to?"

"Abby isn't here?"

"No…" She's got a very concerned look on her face, and rests a hand on his forehead to see how high his fever is, and then actually takes his temperature, and from there seems to decide he's still on the right side of 103. (He has managed to drag himself awake enough to take his Tylenol every time Abby's called.) So she says, "Abby went to work ten hours ago. She's running trace. I was on my way to question a suspect, and she asked me to check in on you. Are you okay?"

"Apparently not." He thought about sitting up, but that seemed like way too much effort.

"Do you need anything?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay. The soup is on your bedside table. Try to eat some."

"Is it hot?"

"Yes. Very."

The encouraged him to sit up, because you can't eat chicken soup through a straw, and he decided very, very quickly that sitting up was the most intensely stupid thing he's ever done because parts of his body that had been under the blankets had to get out from under those blankets to get to the soup.

Ziva saw him looking miserable, shaking, shoulders, arms, and chest flushed and covered in goosebumps.

"Would you like a sweatshirt or sweater?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

He pointed to his dresser. "Bottom drawer."

She grabbed him a MIT t-shirt and a NCIS sweatshirt and helped him get both of them on. The shock of cold clothing on his skin was worse than coming out from under the blankets, and he winced and cursed quietly as she got him dressed. Once dressed, he pulled the blankets up further, over his right arm and shoulder, and began to slowly eat the soup, being extra careful not to spill it. (A good ninety percent of it ended up in his mouth, but he's still pretty shivery, so some of it isn't quite getting to his mouth.)

"It's really good." By which he means it's really hot. He's honestly not with it enough to have much of an opinion on how it tastes.

"I'm glad you like it, McGee."

He nodded and took another spoonful.

Ziva petted his hair affectionately. "Abby will be home soon. I will tell her you're sitting up and taking nourishment."

* * *

Gibbs headed up the stairs quietly. Everyone else was taking a dinner break. Abby asked him to check in on Tim, because if she worked through dinner she'd get home that much sooner, and until she did her magic, they were stuck at square two.

So she was in the lab.

And Gibbs was walking up the steps, bag with more chicken soup, some crackers, and a toasted bagel in his hand.

Sunset meant there was still enough light to see in Tim's room, so he could see him lying, curled into a ball, shivering, but dead-to-the-world asleep.

He put the bag on the table, picked up the empty bowl from Ziva's delivery, and tossed it out. The water bottles were empty, so he took them downstairs and refilled them, bringing more water up for him. The Tylenol bottle looked to be three quarters full, so that was fine.

Gibbs sat on the edge of the bed, stroked Tim's hair, and fought the urge to go get some more blankets for him. It was obvious the poor boy was frozen, but it was also obvious that his fever still hadn't broken. And from what Abby had told him, wrapping Tim in every blanket in the house had almost cooked him once, so no matter how much Gibbs wanted to tuck him in further, it wasn't going to happen.

"Hey, Tim."

He grunted and tried to curl into an even tighter ball.

"Wake up." He was gently petting Tim's shoulder. "You need to take more meds."

Tim jerked a little at that, and uncurled some. "Jethro?" He looked really confused, like he wasn't entirely sure Gibbs was real or not.

"Yeah. Abby's still working; she sent me to check in on you."

"Mmm…"

"Take your pills and you can go back to sleep."

Tim felt around, grabbed two more Tylenol, and dry swallowed them. Gibbs handed him a bottle of water. "Drink some, too."

He had to sit up for that. So he did, with a little help from Gibbs, draining the bottle fast, and flopped back onto the mattress and into a tight ball. It was amazing how tiny of a ball a guy as tall as Tim could make.

There was no point to trying to tuck Tim in, he had the blankets wrapped around him as tightly as possible. So Gibbs just leaned down, kissed Tim on the forehead, ruffled his hair, and said, "Get some sleep."

Tim opened one eye and looked up at him, pretty bleary. "Did you really just" cough "do that?"

Gibbs smiled and did it again. "Don't talk. Go to sleep."

Tim squeezed Gibbs' hand, and went back to sleep.

* * *

Running trace went way longer than Abby was expecting. Of course, when your crime scene was a garbage dump, and your team was one man down, you end up with multiple vast piles of crap to sort through, and one less person to help sort. So, while it is true that her general rule is to not actually engage in the sorting through crap, she broke that rule today in an effort to help get things done faster. (Hell, once the Autopsy was done, even Jimmy pitched in on the sorting.) And done faster it was. Given the pile of trace she had to deal with, she set records far above and beyond her own already Olympic-level standards. And now, she was done, and with any luck done for at least the next day or two, as well.

Which was why it was well past midnight when Gibbs dropped her off (He took one look at her closing up the lab, snagged her keys and steered her toward his car, the expression on his face indicating that if he let her drive that tired Tim would get up out of bed and beat the snot out of him, and he'd deserve it.) at home, i.e. twenty hours since she got the call out.

She's tired, sore from all the bending down to sort through stuff, and awfully smelly.

So, first stop, the laundry room to deposit her clothing. Yes, she wore coveralls for the sorting, but the smell clung to her skin, and from her skin to her clothing, and honestly, at this point she's about two minutes from cutting her hair off and burning the clothing in an effort to get free of the smell.

Next stop, shower.

A long, thorough scrubbing took care of the smell issue (and the desire to chop her hair off.)

Next step, check on sleeping husband. He was still way hotter than he should be, but he didn't jerk away when she touched him, so he's probably getting better. From what she can feel, he didn't even wake up when her hand rested on his forehead. He certainly didn't say anything.

Next: food. And while it's true Abby isn't a big midnight snacker, between pregnant and dinner seven hours ago, she's ravenous right now.

Once she had some food in her, she began to feel human again. Well, fairly human. Mostly tired. Not the bone-deep-I-cannot-possibly-move-a-muscle-just-let -me-lie-here-and-die tired of the first trimester, this is just the basic too many hours and no caffeine tired, but right now sleep sounds like a really good idea.

So, back up to bed she went, hanging her kimono on the back of the bedroom door, and very carefully slipped into the bed next to Tim.

He shrieked when she spooned him. She'd been so careful to get in without raising a draft, and he hadn't stirred at all when she slipped under the covers, but as she pressed her body to his, he shrieked and practically levitated off the bed.

This was when it occurred to her, that while it's true that her internal temperature is 98ish, she's been up and about and moving all around, wearing only a light silk robe, so her skin temperature, especially her on her legs and feet, is probably in the mid-eighties and must feel like being hugged by an ice cube on his fever-flushed skin.

This is when it also occurred to her that when she checked his temperature, she was right out of a hot shower, so her body's sense of hot was off.

She jumped back fast, got out of the bed, put a pair of pajama bottoms on along with socks and one of his long sleeve t-shirts, got the thermometer, checked, he's at 102.3, better, but still hot, snagged a blanket for her, and then spooned up behind him, on top of the other blankets with one over just her.

Fortunately none of that seemed to actually wake him up. He muttered something, grumbled a bit, coughed some, and settled back into what looked like deep sleep.

This time when she spooned him, giving him something solid, and maybe not warm, but not icy cold either, to snuggle into, he did, sighing, sounding fairly content. He even unclenched from the little ball he had been in. Not a whole lot, he's still curled in on himself, but his knees aren't right under his chin anymore.

She kissed his shoulder, noticing that somewhere along the line he got a t-shirt and sweatshirt on, and held him close.


	163. Tuesday

Tamiflu is the best thing ever. Hands down, no competition, second place is miles behind it.

The last time Tim got the flu he spent seven days utterly miserable and three just pretty sad after that.

It's day three (Tuesday) and he's feeling, well, not horrible at all. Not great, not by any stretch of the imagination, but not terrible either. He's a little sore, a whole lot tired, and the cough is really annoying, but his fever finally broke, so he's not delirious or shivering.

So, all in all, it could be a whole lot worse.

He woke up a bit after eleven, noticed that he wasn't shaking any more, took his temperature, saw it was at the high end of the normal range (okay, yeah 99.5 is technically still a fever, but he's feeling so much better he's willing to consider himself back to the normal range) and very slowly (and carefully, Abby's spooned up behind him, and he doesn't want to wake her up) got up to get a shower.

Shower felt great. Hot water was excellent. He started to feel weak and shaky again before he got done scrubbing everything, so he didn't quite get entirely washed off, but all of him got rinsed, the important parts got scrubbed, and he doesn't smell bad anymore, so that's a victory of sorts, and if he needed to spend five minutes sitting on the bathroom floor after getting out of the shower to rest, well, he does have the flu, and hasn't eaten anything solid since Saturday night.

Eventually he got himself back together enough to get up and brush his teeth (also excellent, toothbrushes are vastly underrated miracles and he never wants the inside of his mouth to taste that way again) and walk very slowly back into their bedroom to put some clean clothing on.

He's still not enjoying the feel of fresh, cold clothing on his skin, but not being in the clammy, damp sweat-soaked t-shirt and sweatshirt was good.

At some point between waking up and now, Abby left their bed, and changed the sheets. He debated between getting back into bed, which sounded pretty good, or going all the way downstairs to get on the sofa, which meant he could watch some TV to go with the napping he had planned for today.

TV and napping won over just napping, so he grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around himself, and slowly shuffled toward the sofa.

* * *

He'd gotten himself pretty comfortable on the sofa (lying down, two blankets, remote within easy reach, but TV not turned on. He's thinking nap first, then season nine of Supernatural.) when Abby came into the living room and sat on the sofa next to him.

"You're alive then?"

"Looks like it."

She kissed his forehead. "Good. You feel cooler."

"Still have a little fever, but I'm all here again."

"Very good. You want some food?"

He shrugged; he's not feeling any burning need to eat. Probably a pretty good sign that he's not all better. "Tea? Bagel? I was thinking sleep."

"Okay. You sleep." She was petting him, making sure the blankets were nice and tucked in around him.

He'd closed his eyes, relaxed a little, and was just starting to drift when something occurred to him. "It's Tuesday, right?"

"Yeah."

"Why are you here?" True, they haven't done the whole one of them is sick thing before, so he's not sure what the rules are, but he's fairly certain she doesn't need to take off work just because he's not feeling well.

"Worked twenty hours yesterday. I'm beat. I'm taking off until they need more trace run."

"Okay." He thought about that while coughing. "You aren't getting sick, are you?"

She shook her head. "Just tired. For some strange reason, I can't work all day, grab a three hour nap, and do it again anymore."

He stroked her tummy and coughed again. "Some strange reason, huh?"

"Yeah."

"You wanna nap, too?" He curled onto his side, coughed yet again, and patted the sofa in front of him.

"I'm good right now. Only been awake half an hour."

"Okay." So he rolled onto his back again, and went to sleep.

* * *

The next time he woke up, there was tea and a toasted bagel on the coffee table in front of him. Even better, he felt good enough that he really wanted to eat them.

He was happily scarfing them down when Abby came back into the living room. "Thought I heard you up and moving around."

"Yep." He chewed, started coughing, and finally got his breath back. "I love food."

"Glad to hear it."

He reached for her hand, and she let herself be gently tugged onto the sofa, next to him. "I love you, too."

She snuggled into him. "Even better."

"I think I said some really," more coughing, "horrible things to you when you were," and yet more coughing, "rubbing me down."

Abby leaned back a little to look into his eyes. "Baby, you were completely out of your head, and I'm sure being rubbed with something cold and wet felt like torture."

"I'm sorry."

"You say something like that to me when you're sane, then you can be sorry."

"I say something," very harsh coughing stopped that sentence for a minute, "like that when I'm sane," even more coughing stopped him again, "and you should divorce me."

She can see this is serious for him, and he needs to talk about it. She can also see he can say about four words at a time before he starts coughing. "Okay, Tim, we can and will talk about this, but not now. You need to be able to say a full sentence without coughing before we have a real conversation."

He nodded, agreeing with that, but there was one thing he needed to know. "Ducky?"

She got that he was asking how much of it Ducky heard. "Yeah, he was there the whole time. He helped me. You couldn't stay on your side by yourself, so he held you in place, and I rubbed your back down. Same thing with getting the sheets changed."

"Great."

"He's not going to hold it against you."

Tim shrugged a little. He knows Ducky isn't going to hold it against him, but he still doesn't want to explain how he even had phrases like those in his head, let alone that he'd whip them out when his defenses were gone.

"You want more to eat?"

He nodded. There's nothing he can do about what happened with Abby and Ducky, and more food sounded like a great idea.

* * *

"Wow!" Abby just stared at the TV.

Tim was lying on his side, spooned behind her, on the sofa. "I didn't see that coming at all."

"Really?" She turned so she was laying on her back, and he scooted a little further back into the sofa to give her a few more inches.

"Yeah. Not at all. Cas and Dean," that was too many words, he started coughing again, but managed to suck in some air to finish, "sure, but Jesus coming back as Bobby?" They'd just finished the fourth episode of Supernatural Season Nine.

"You really didn't see that coming?"

He was trying to flash her an irked look while he coughed, from the way she was smiling, he didn't appear to be succeeding. Finally he said, "No. I really didn't. How did you see it?"

"Okay, Sam and Dean are the parallel characters for Lucifer and Michael. John and Bobby are the parallels for Old Testament God and Jesus. Bobby even rose from the dead after three days."

"Everyone," more coughing, "rises from the dead on that show. Who hasn't risen from the dead?"

"Adam."

"First man. Eternally damned." Even more coughing. "He's never getting out of Hell until the rest of mankind is redeemed."

"Huh…" Abby thought about that for a moment, staring at the paused end credits. "Hadn't thought of that. Anyway, Bobby is the parallel to Jesus, so of course—" Abby stopped dead in the middle of that sentence, her eyes went really wide, and then she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her stomach. "You feel that?"

From context he knew what she had to be talking about, but, nope, he didn't feel it.

"Sorry."

"Here, quick." She let go of his hand and yanked up her t-shirt. "She's still moving."

But even skin on skin, he couldn't feel it.

He shook his head, loving the expression of wonder on her face and wishing desperately he could feel their baby move. "What's it feel like?"

She already had her right hand on his left, so she vibrated the tips of her fingers against the back of his hand, tapping them a little as well.

"Wow."

"Yeah." There was a brilliant smile on her face as she said that. "It's soft, and fluttery, and sort of bubbly."

He's grinning now, too. He scooted down and lifted up on his left arm a bit, so his mouth was hovering over Abby's tummy, and he kissed it gently, then said, "So, did Bobby being Jesus' vessel surprise you, too." He paused to cough for a moment. "Or are you agreeing with Mommy that it was pretty obvious?"

Abby tugged on his hair, and he looked up at her. "Mommy?"

"Uh, yeah. You're Mom. I'm Dad. That's usually how this works."

There were tears in her eyes, a wide, glorious smile on her face, and she gently stroked her fingers over his face. "We're really going to be Mom and Dad."

He kissed her tummy again, and grinned back at her. "Yeah, we are." Then his arm started to shake, letting him know he wasn't healthy enough to lean on it for that long, so he lowered himself back onto his side, and scooted back up to be face to face with her.

She rolled onto her side toward him, her tummy pressed against his, her leg over his hip. "Dad, then?"

"Yeah. I don't see being Pa or Father."

She laughed a little at that. "No. I don't see that, either. 'Course where I'm from we have Mamas and Moms, no one has a Mommy."

"Which do you want to be?"

"I think we'll get something figured out, probably be both depending on what's going on. I know my mom was." He nodded and coughed at that. She kissed the tip of his nose. "No more talking for you."

He nodded at that, too. The coughing was really frustrating. He had no idea how much he talked until every other sentence made him feel like his lungs were trying to explode.

His hand settled on the side of her belly, hoping to feel something.

"I think she went back to sleep, or turning means I can't feel her."

He blinked in a _I understand_ sort of way. It was pretty relaxing to be lying like that. His arm under her neck, her leg over his hip, his hand on her belly, and he'd been awake for a whole three hours at that point, so he was probably due for another nap.

And, like when he usually falls asleep his brain sort of wandered around over the last few things they'd been talking about or doing. It landed on something he really liked, and wanted to say to her, a lot. So his eyes popped back open and he said, "I want us to adopt Jethro," which was followed by more coughing.

She hadn't been party to the way his brain got to that thought, so she furrowed her brow and looked confused.

"Make it official," the coughing after that was fairly mild, "have our kids call him Grandpa or something like that," unfortunately the coughing that went with that was hard enough it strained the muscles between his ribs below his scapula, so he groaned and winced to go along with it.

She put her fingers on his lips. "Really, no more talking for you. I will get your phone and you can text me if you have to talk."

He nodded.

"Did you just pull your back?"

He nodded again.

She untangled herself from him, and got up. A few minutes later she was back with his phone, more tea, an ice pack which he didn't want anywhere near his body, and two Advil. He took the pills, drank the tea, coughed a little, winced because it felt like knives in his chest and back, and glared at the ice pack, typing into his phone. _No ice. _

"Fine, be sore."

He glared at her, took the ice, and gingerly turned so that it was tucked between his back and the sofa.

"Better."

_Can I have another blanket? _He's fairly sure the fever's completely done now, but even if it wasn't, an extra blanket when you're lying on a bag of ice doesn't seem like an unreasonable request.

"Sure." She went upstairs and came back with one more to tuck around him.

_Grandpa?_

She knelt on the floor in front of him, and kissed him, a gentle smile on her face. "Yes." Another gentle kiss. "I love the idea of making it official, of him being Kelly's Grandpa…" She thought about that for a moment. "Your mom's dad, the one you were really close to, who was he to you?"

_Pop._

"If he likes it, he could be Pop for our kids."

That gets a wide smile out of Tim. _Good._


	164. Thursday

Thursday morning, he offered to drive Abby into NCIS.

He's not going to work. Between the wrath of Ducky and the fact that he tried to write a little last night, re-read what he came up with, and very promptly concluded that he wasn't nearly with it enough to do any sort of real detail work for more than ten minutes at a time, he's not willing to go near a case. He messes up a few pages of Deep Six, and well, it's annoying, but he re-does them later. He messes up on someone's financials, phone records, or God, worse, trying to break into someone's system, and that's a really big problem.

But he does want to talk to Ducky.

And Gibbs took Abby home Tuesday morning, so if he drops her off they don't end up with both of their cars at the Navy Yard.

Plus he is going a little stir crazy just laying around at home, so getting out for an hour isn't a bad idea. Maybe, if he's feeling really energetic, he'll grab some food.

But mostly, he's going in to talk to Ducky. Get this done with. And if he's talking to Ducky about it, then he needs to talk to Abby, too.

He's turned on the ignition and is pulling out of the driveway when he says to Abby, "I said some really awful things to you."

Abby nods. "Nothing I haven't already heard you say." Tim's eyes went wide, and he looked utterly shocked and horrified. That confirmed something she'd been pretty sure of for almost two years now. "You talk in your sleep sometimes, baby."

His mouth opens and closes a few times but nothing came out. Finally he says, "I didn't know that."

"Yeah, I was pretty sure you didn't remember it. You'll toss around sometimes, start cursing, and I'll poke you. Sometimes you wake up enough you seem to notice I'm there, most of the time you just quiet down and settle back to sleep."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

He's thinking frantically, trying to come up with something to anchor this to his understanding of both himself and reality, but he's not coming up with anything. "I don't remember those dreams."

"I know." She stroked his hand. "I'm glad you don't. You don't seem happy while it's going on."

"I'd imagine not." If he's cursing in his sleep, the kind of cursing he was doing on Sunday, he knows what he has to be dreaming about when it happens, and yeah, not happy at all. "Does it happen a lot?"

"Every other month?" She shrugs a little. It happens often enough that it's part of the routine now, and rarely enough that it's not an everyday or every week sort of thing. "It's one of the ways I know you're stressed. It started after the case where you saw your Dad again."

"Oh."

"It was really… disturbing… the first few times it happened. But you'll notice I've never said anything about you and him patching things up again. That man can rot in Hell for what he's said to you." Her voice is hot and dead serious as she says that.

That's the single most hateful thing Tim's ever heard Abby say about anyone, so he's fairly sure he must be replaying the Admirals' Greatest Hits when he sleeps.

"And I know you're really unhappy about saying those things, but, really, Tim, you weren't in your right mind, and what Ducky and I did was painful for you. So, I'm not going to say it was okay, because we both know there are some things you can never, ever say to people, but it made sense. Look, you were really pissed at me on Saturday, and you had no problem expressing how pissed off you were with a whole lot of fucks and shits, but you still said nothing even remotely like what came out of your mouth on Sunday. When you've got any functional filters in place, those words don't get out of your mouth."

"Yeah." He knows that, still…. "I hate the fact they're in my head at all."

"I know."

"And I hate the fact that I said them to you, called you a slut, whore, and cunt." And those are just the ones he remembers. But he knows it went on longer than that, and he knows there were extremely degrading adjectives that went with them and that they were wrapped in some really hateful sentences.

"I know that, too. But, we're okay. I don't like hearing you say things like that, but I know you don't like saying them, and I really know you didn't like hearing them, either."

"Yeah."

"And look, if you don't want to say anything to Ducky about it, he's not going to think less of you. You want to just let it lie, and it will."

"No. I don't want him thinking that… I don't want him thinking that's the kind of thing I'd just say, especially not to you."

"Tim, really, you were out of your head. It was very obvious that this wasn't the sort of thing you were just coming up with. He could tell you were remembering, not inventing."

"Which is almost worse. He's dating my grandmother."

"You don't need to explain, at all, if you don't want to, and you certainly don't need to cover for her. If he respects her less because of this… well, I know I do."

"Abby?"

"I know you love her. And she's strong, and capable, and lovely, and encouraged you to be who you wanted to be, but she let him do that to you. I don't hate her or anything. I know you spent most of your childhood on the opposite side of the country from her. But she still raised him, and she didn't protect you, not well enough. Same reason why even though your mom is wonderful, I don't adore her, either. They had a duty to protect you, and they didn't."

He doesn't know how to respond to that. He's always thought of his mom as one more soldier in the trenches with him, and Penny was his life preserver. She read his stories, and praised his work, and sent him encouraging letters and the books his mom wouldn't let him read, and helped him find options other than the Navy, and…

And that's more than he's got room in his head for right now.

And, they're also in the Navy Yard parking lot.

* * *

"Timothy." Ducky's hand is starting to rise as he stands up when Tim pokes his head into Autopsy.

"Just here to talk. I'm not working," Tim replies as he walks in.

Ducky's eyes narrow, like he doesn't entirely believe Tim.

Tim holds up his hands, and sits down on the desk chair in front of Ducky's computer. "Really, just talk, and then I'm going home to get another nap."

"Good." Ducky sits at the desk next to him and begins to make both of them a cup of tea. "What is so pressing you need to get out of bed to come talk to me about it."

"I don't entirely remember what I was saying when you and Abby were cooling me down, but I remember enough of it, so I know it wasn't pretty."

"No. It wasn't." The look in Ducky's eyes is gentle, but there's no excuse or forgiveness in it, either.

"I don't usually… well… ever, say things like that."

"I know, Timothy." To the best Ducky can remember, until Sunday, he'd never heard anything beyond mild profanity out of Tim, and he's seen him in some pretty tight situations.

"My dad used to say things like that, and apparently it's still in my head."

Ducky nods, suddenly getting what was going on. The gentleness in his eyes deepens, forgiveness, excuse, and a soft, and very weary, sadness joined it.

"And I'm… horrified is probably the right word, that I said things like that. I know it's not okay to ever say things like that, no matter what."

"Which is why you don't ever say things like that." Ducky finishes up with the cup of tea and hands it to Tim. "He didn't just say them, did he? He said them to you, about you?"

"Yeah."

Ducky clasps his hands over Tim's. "None of it was ever true, Timothy."

"I know that, now."

"Good."

Tim drinks some of the tea, fast, and says, "I know you're good at keeping secrets, and I probably don't have to ask… but I'd really appreciate it if none of that ever got out."

"As long as you are my patient, nothing you say or do will ever be mentioned by me to anyone who isn't you or Abby."

"Thanks."

"But, obviously, it still weighs on you. Maybe talking to someone about it would be a good thing."

Tim shrugs a little at that. A lot of thoughts are bouncing around his head right now, and he's not entirely sure what to do with them all. Once he's had more time to process it, he'll have a better idea of what to do next. "Maybe. Abby and Jimmy know about it, at least in the abstract. Abby's got more details of how and why it happened. Until last week Jimmy had a better idea of the sort of language he used. My mom was, not exactly there, he was pretty good about not usually having an audience when he was going to really curse me out, but she knew it happened. She was there the day I told him I wasn't going to Annapolis, heard that fight. Hell, the whole neighborhood did. Same thing with my grandparents. They didn't have specifics, but they knew it was bad. There was a reason why they let me stay with them any summer he was on land."

"Penny?" And this of course, touches both of them.

"Knew enough that she didn't think twice about offering to let me live with her as soon as I graduated high school. I was on the plane to Baltimore less than twelve hours after I got my diploma. She was teaching at St. John's then, and I was going to Johns Hopkins. I didn't turn eighteen until December, so I couldn't get an apartment in my own name, and the dorms didn't open until the end of August. Anyway, Penny knew he had been very upset about me not going to Annapolis, she knew what very upset meant, and she made sure I had a safe place to land after I graduated."

Ducky nods at that, and Tim adds, "You can talk to her about it, too. If you want. I know that… you're good friends and…" He flounders on that and lets it trail off.

Ducky squeezes his hand again. "Just because he didn't use his fists doesn't mean it wasn't abuse."

That stops Tim for a good minute as an entire paradigm of his life suddenly shifts. Ducky lets him sit there, thinking, and finally Tim smiles dryly, a not even a remotely amused expression on his face. He's kind of talking on auto pilot, thinking through it as he's saying it. "Kids like me don't get abused, Ducky. No one ever says that word, let alone thinks it. We get 'toughened up' or 'taught how hard the world is.' Pick whatever euphemism that makes it sound like my dad was looking out for me that you like, and that's what happened to me."

"Timothy—"

Tim cut him off with a shake of his head. "I'm an Admiral's grandson, and at the time a Captain-on-the-rise's son. Everyone in my family knew we fought, a lot of our friends, too. But no one's ever said that word, not even Penny. There have been 216 Four Star Admirals in the history of the US Navy. My dad is one of them, and my grandfather was one of them. You rise that far, you need connections. We're Irish Catholic out of Boston. The Kennedys were Jack and Bobby to my Grandfather, and though we left Boston a long time ago, the connections are still deep. Hell, the Admiral's on the President's task force for drone war tactics. He's probably designing new ones to launch off of aircraft carriers.

"Anyway, when you're that connected, everyone looks the other way, especially if you make it easy by not leaving any bruises. So, yeah, I know it was abuse," and right that second he does, though he's never thought about it like that before, "and he knew that, also." He's suddenly very sure of that, too. "But words don't show. No bruises, no broken limbs, nothing to go in your file or make any problems when you're up for review for the next level up. As long as you've got the perfect family on paper, nothing else matters."

"I'm sorry, Timothy."

"It's long done, Ducky. Long done. Anyway, I'm sorry you had to hear that."

Ducky nods at him. "It wasn't your fault."

He flashes an irked look at Ducky. "When I was a kid, sure. But once I was older? No, Ducky, I chose not to be the man he wanted me to be. I could have been. What I didn't have in sheer talent I could have made up for with brains and drive. I could have laid down, done the things he wanted me to, gone to Annapolis, became a sailor. But I didn't. I earned the words he threw at me. I own them. They're mine, and they're the marks of being the man I wanted to be."

"Ah." Ducky doesn't quite look like he knows what to do with that. "I meant saying them to Abigail and I. You said it was never all right, and I meant to touch on that, not…"

"Oh."

"I'm sure what we were doing to you hurt, and with your history with cold, it had to be terrifying. It was very clear that you did not understand why we were doing it to you. You were too weak to fight, so the last weapon you had, exceptionally crude invective, came out. Since you were in no mindset to be coming up with it off the cuff, we both knew it was something you were remembering. We were sorry it was so traumatic for you."

"Fortunately, I don't remember it all that well, either." Which isn't exactly true, bits and pieces of it are still really vivid, but he's already in really uncomfortable territory and has no desire to make it worse.

"Good."

They heard the woosh of the Autopsy doors opening followed immediately by, "Tim, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be home, in bed!" from Jimmy.

"Which is where I'm going, soon." Talking with Abby and Ducky has left him feeling wrung out and ready for a good long nap. "Just needed to check in with Ducky."

"You couldn't do it over the phone?"

"Gibbs wants us breaking down a wall on Saturday."

"Ahh… yes… your bootcamp assignment," Ducky quickly figured out what their cover was and snapped into it.

"I wanted to know if maybe Sunday…"

"Maybe." Ducky gives him a stern look. "Maybe. Let's see how you are feeling on Saturday and go from there. I'm certain that Tony and Jimmy can help Jethro take down that wall without your help."

"Not just us, actually. Breena wanted me to ask if you'd be up to watching Molly. She really likes the idea of seeing the boat and joining in. Gibbs had told me it was okay if she wanted to come…"

"Certainly, Jimmy." Ducky smiles at that, looking like he's enjoying the idea of babysitting.

"I should get going. Got a nap to take and some Supernatural to watch after that." Tim stands up, and grabs his jacket.

"I'll walk with you," Jimmy adds. They're in the hallway, walking slowly, when Jimmy says, "Breena pointed out last night that Ohio State made March Madness this year."

Tim nods, he's aware of what that is. And after a second it clicks why Jimmy is telling him this. Tony is a rabid basketball fan and was a Buckeye.

"She knows we still don't have a bachelor party for Tony, and suggested we keep an eye on it. If they get to the Final Four, that would be something cool, that he'd like, and wouldn't involve us taking him to a strip club."

That perks Tim up. They'd been bouncing bachelor party ideas around for a while, without coming up with any ones that Tony would actually like.

"I'll talk to my cousin and see about what you have to do to get tickets."

"Good."

* * *

A/N: There have been 214 active duty four star Admirals in the history of the US Navy. I added two for Nelson and John McGee.


	165. Friday

On Friday he was bored.

Bored, bored, bored.

Tim's rarely bored. Best he can remember, the last time he was bored he was on a stakeout. Best he can remember, the only time he gets bored is on stakeout. So, for about, oh, nine seconds it was a kind of novel sensation, and then it was, well, boring.

Between cases, writing, gaming, TV, and reading, he almost never has time where he's got nothing to do when he's on his own. But, while he's feeling mostly better at this point, really, he's just tired, and sore, and okay, he's still coughing a little, which is why he's sore, his brain's not all back yet.

And he knows it. He sat at his typewriter, spent another hour working on Deep Six, looked at what he had, and it was crap.

He played Call of Duty for ten minutes and got his ass handed to him so fast so many times he knew it was time to bow out.

Minecraft didn't hold his attention for more than twenty minutes. Modding for Minecraft didn't last for more than seven minutes.

He read three pages of his book before he lost interest.

Tim thought about jerking off, but he's not that horny and Abby'll probably be home a little early, so might as well hold off and see if she's interested in helping him "recuperate." Okay, some fun ideas on that front held his attention for a good ten minutes, and he's wondering if they've got anything that looks even vaguely like a nurse's outfit. Abby could probably bring some scrubs home from work. He sends her a text about that, and that ate up a pleasant half hour, but eventually she had to get back to work, leaving him, once again, bored.

What he really wants is another season of Supernatural. He's not with it enough to work or write. But something fun and snarky and sexy would be really good about now, alas he caught up with the live show yesterday, so no new episodes for a few more days.

He flipped around Amazon and Netflix, watched half an episode of The Dresden Files, which he's fairly sure he'd normally like (he liked the books), but it's not keeping his interest, either.

Bored, bored, bored.

Bored Tim thinks. That's just how he is. His brain never really goes quiet. It just hops from one thing to the next, processing away. When he's not bored, he has an easy time staying on one thing for a long time. Bored Tim skips from issue to issue, looking for something to catch his interest.

And it lands on Penny, and the Admiral, and some really nasty words, and the fact that trying to not think about that is probably a good half of why he can't focus on anything. Because, when there's something niggling around in the back of his mind, something he's trying to ignore, his brain will try to bring him back to it, and short circuiting his ability to focus on things is one of the ways it does that.

So, he can let it go, keep bouncing from thing to thing, keep blaming the lack of focus on recovering from the flu, or he actually face what's going on back there in his head.

He makes himself a cup of tea, heads to his office, and sits down in front of his typewriter. He's not sure if he'll write about it or not. Sometimes just thinking is enough. Sometimes he's got to get it on paper.

Maybe paper. He pulls the sheet of Deep Six: Shadow Force (It's probably a good thing there are marketing people to help him come up with titles for these things. He's fairly sure they won't be keeping this one.) out and slides a blank one in, and then stares at it.

The thing is, it never occurred to him that his mom or Penny or his grandparents should have done anything more than they did. Sailors curse, it's just who and what they are. Though, as he thinks about it, not wanting to be a guy who said things like that was a big part of not wanting to be a sailor. He's mildly surprised that he's never made that connection before.

Dads yell at their kids when they don't live up to their expectations. Everyone does that, right? That's part of how you let them know you're serious about being disappointed. Sure, he's got no intention of being that guy himself, but the list of things he's intending to do differently with Kelly is about six miles long, so the fact that's on there isn't a surprise. In fact, the only play out of his father's book that he's intending to use (and really, he's taking it out of Gibbs' playbook) is have high standards.

But there's a line between yelling and degrading. And there's a line between having expectations for your kid's own good and wanting to control every aspect of her life.

There's a line between pushing them to do their best and abuse.

He had friends, acquaintances really, who got slapped around. That was over the line. That was considered base and shameful and doing that was the sign of a man who couldn't control himself. And the Admiral never did that.

But he wouldn't have. Because it would have looked bad. He almost never yelled when there were other people around, because that looked bad, too. Technically, he rarely yelled, at least not in the sense of being angry. Loud and scary, yeah, he did that a lot, but he was usually pretty calm about it. He certainly knew what he was doing, and it was intentional.

The only time Tim thinks the Admiral was actually angry, the only time he fully lost it, was when Tim showed him the Annapolis acceptance, handed it to him, waited for the smile, and it happened, wide, bright, happy smile, really, genuinely pleased for once, one of the few times he can remember his dad smiling at him once he was a teen, and then he took that letter back and ripped it, very carefully and deliberately, into shreds and said, "I'm going to Johns Hopkins."

He replayed the words that came next, ran them through his mind. They're far enough back in his personal history and he's done it often enough now that he can just about do it without feeling like he wants to hit someone, hide, or cry.

Until Ducky said it, the word abuse never entered his mind. He hadn't been lying; no one ever said it, no one ever thought it. But once Ducky said it, it clicked, and obviously that's how Abby has to think about it, otherwise she wouldn't be upset with his mom or grandmother…

He was a kid who wanted his dad to pay attention. He wanted his dad home. He wanted hugs and smiles and petting and soft words and laughter and encouragement and time. But his dad wasn't home, and his Dad only smiled when he got everything perfect, and once he regularly got everything perfect his dad stopped smiling because perfect wasn't enough and he needed to do more and better and do it the way his Dad liked it and only the way he liked it.

He was a teen who fought with his dad. More or less constantly when the Admiral was home, but he wasn't home a lot. By the time he was fourteen, fighting was their default setting. Tim's pretty sure he started a lot of those fights, well, some of them anyway. He definitely started the Annapolis one. But… but even if your fifteen-year-old is pushing all of your buttons as hard as he can, because he's sure he can't get you to pet him, so he'll make you yell instead, you still don't call him fat or ugly or stupid or clumsy, you really don't call him a worthless failure, and you certainly don't call him an weak little faggot who needs to be raped by a whole battleship of sailors to learn some respect for the lessons he's being taught in how to be tough, you just don't.

The idea that stuff like that might actually happen on battleships was also part of why Tim didn't want to be a sailor, and is also something he's just putting together right now. (The fact that he gets seasick when he sees a battleship, usually before he actually sets foot on it, let alone can feel it moving, probably also has something to do with this, and is, yet again, something he's putting together for the first time right now.)

He was a kid who was abused by his dad.

He lets that sit in his mind for a few minutes. There's a sort of… uncomfortable peace to that, and he's not sure what to do with that emotion. It feels right, but he doesn't want it to.

If it was abuse, then the other adults in his life had a duty to protect him.

If it was just two guys butting heads, then they didn't.

How much did they really know? Everyone knew they fought… but he was good at making sure no one really heard what he said…

He pulled out his phone and brought up Penny's number.

"Tim?"

"Hey, Penny, do you have time to talk?"

"Officially, I've got office hours right now, but no one's here, and I don't have another lecture for three hours. What's going on?"

"That'll do." He doesn't say anything for a few seconds. "Penny, why do you think my Dad loves me?"

"Timothy…" He can hear concern and confusion in her voice.

"Just lay it out for me, like it's a proof."

"Honey, can you back up a little, give me an idea of why you're asking and what's going on?"

"It's a long story."

"I've got time." He hears her stand up and a door click shut. "Just closed my door. Office hours are now officially booked. You've got me 'til four. Start at the beginning."

So he did. And he didn't pull any punches or censor himself. He told her everything starting with getting sick, every phrase he could remember of what he said to Abby and Ducky, as well as a bunch of others he was pretty sure (really hoped) he didn't say to them, and he told her about hearing them in the first place, and then told her about talking with Ducky, and how he said just because it wasn't physical didn't mean it wasn't abuse. He finished with, "So, why do you think he loves me? What do you see that I don't?"

She was silent on the other end for a long time, thinking about what he said, probably looking very distressed. He's not going to press her to respond, but he can tell by the way this silence feels that he just dropped a ton of stuff she hadn't known on her, (which was a relief for him) and that right now one of her major paradigms is shifting, as well.

Finally, after what was probably three solid minutes of silence, she says, "First off, Tim, Ducky's right, that's over the line. It's never okay to do that to someone else. He is my son, and I love him, and it's still abuse, and it's still wrong, and…" her voice cracked and she sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly before continuing, "I'm so sorry I didn't do more for you. All I can say is I didn't know it was that bad. I knew you fought, and I knew he was angry, but… not that, but I should have, and I should have gotten you out of there a whole lot sooner."

"Why do you think he loves me, Penny? Past can't change, but… I want some more context."

She took another deep breath and tried to answer calmly. "I was there the first time he held you, Tim. You were six days old when he got home. I remember the way his hands shook and the smile on his face. I was there two months ago when we got together for lunch and he asked to see your wedding pictures. I saw the way he looked at them. I gave him the signed copies of your books that he asked for."

"The books he's told me were 'a massive fucking waste of time and talent.' My 'faggy' little mysteries that I needed to 'stop dicking around with and commit to some real work?'"

"When…"

"After that case… You told me he loved me. I called him. We talked for like, eight minutes, and it seemed like it was going okay until I mentioned I was a best-selling author and he went ballistic on my books."

"Oh."

"And it went downhill from there on my career. He was yelling about how I needed to commit to one thing and really do it, and then I mentioned the whole chose not to be in charge of Cybercrime thing, you know committing to my team, and well, a minute into that harangue I hung up. Dereliction of duty was the nicest thing he had to say, and I decided I didn't want or need any of the rest of his comments on my life choices."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. I'm hearing that a lot these days. So, he likes pictures of me and wants my books on his shelf. He actually read them?"

"I don't know. We don't talk about that."

"Sounds like he wants trophies so he can keep the image of me in his life without having to actually have me in his life."

"Maybe." She doesn't sound convinced about that, but he gets the sense she's not sure about anything in regards to John right now. "One thing I know is that when he doesn't care about something, he can't get angry about it."

"That's not comforting. Anything else?"

"He always asks about you. He asks Sarah for updates, too."

"Still seems like window dressing to me. People know he has two kids, and he wants to be able to give some sort of information on both of them rather than admit that he's not in contact with me. He probably thinks it looks bad if my books aren't on his shelf, especially since Sarah's are. Did he ask for copies of the wedding pictures?"

"He wanted a few, and of the sonogram."

"Let me guess, he's got them up in his office?"

"I think that's true. Last time I was there your and Sarah's books were on a shelf up behind Nelson and Connor's medals and flags. I don't know if he has the pictures up, but he probably does."

"I called him the night before our wedding, wanting to know why he married mom, what it meant to him, and I mentioned that Abby was pregnant, and all he had to say about it to me was, 'Already?'"

"Look, honey, I'm not going to be the person who says, but he really loves you deep down and that makes it okay, because nothing ever makes this okay. But, it feels like he loves you to me. He seems genuine when he asks about you. He looks interested, and like he wants to know. He appears to really regret the fact that he's never met your wife and is never going to meet your children."

"Damn right he's never meeting my kids! He's not getting within a mile of them! And I don't want you or Sarah giving him pictures of them."

"I don't blame you for that, and I won't give him any again."

"Penny, is this how men who love each other act in your world? Did Grandpa treat him like that?"

"No honey, he didn't."

"Does Ducky treat you like that?"

"No, he doesn't. And Nelson didn't, either."

"I was sick, and Jethro came over, brought me soup, helped me take my pills and kissed my forehead. I'm not a child, and I'm not his, but he still did it."

"Timothy, you are most certainly his. I barely know him, but I know that."

"Did he ever did that for me? I can't remember it."

"You were four, and your mom was pregnant, not too far along, but sick with it, and you had… strep throat I think."

"My mom was pregnant?"

"Tim, she miscarried three times between you and Sarah."

"I didn't know that."

"You were three the first time, four the second, and six the third. She never got past ten weeks. They never got to the point of telling you about it because you were so little. But you were sick, and she was too, and I was staying with you to help out, and I remember him lying on the sofa, letting you nap on him because you were feeling so awful."

Tim tried, really tried, but he couldn't come up with it.

"I don't remember it."

"No. You wouldn't. You were little and sleeping. But he really did used to do things like that. He was home most of the year you were three and a half of four, things like that happened a lot then."

"Back when he still saw me as his little sailor."

"Yes."

"Back when he could love a fantasy of who I was going to be."

Penny sighed. "Yes."

He sat there quietly, looking around his office. "You know, it doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it feels like it should. Mostly I'm just tired, done with this."

"Are you done with it, really?"

"I want to be. Besides Sarah's wedding and your funeral, I'll probably never have to see him again."

"No, you don't."

"So, call it six, maybe eight more hours of my life, and he could always be relied on to behave in public. I don't ever have to do more than make small talk with him again."

"You don't even have to do that if you don't want to."

"I guess not."

"So what happens now?"

"Nap, I think. I'm really tired. I'm feeling a lot better, but still get tired really easily."

"Then go get that nap."

Bed is sounding awfully good, but he's not quite ready to put his phone down, yet. "You going to talk to him?"

"Eventually. He calls every few weeks. You want me to bring this up?"

Tim shrugs, genuinely unsure. But she can't see that. "I really don't know. Nothing changed, you know? The past is still exactly the same; it's just got a new label, and some things are making a bit more sense now." He puzzles that for a bit, and Penny lets him. Eventually he says, "I'm sure he still thinks he was getting me ready for the real world, trying to make me as strong and as good as I could be, at least, I think that was true when I was little. Eventually, by the end, he was smacking me for not being who he wanted me to be. I'm sure he's got miles of justifications. I was soft, and clumsy, and fat, and liked girly things, and got the answer wrong sometimes, and wasn't first string on any team, and—"

"And there was nothing wrong with any of that."

"Not to you. Not to Mom or Gran or Pop."

"Not to anyone who loves you." Penny seems to hear what she's just said. Tim can imagine the expression on her face right now, and he's fairly sure her next conversation with her son will be very interesting.

"Yeah. That's what I thought, Penny. If you want to talk to him about it for you, because he's your son and you're horrified at what he said, and what it says about how he feels about women and gays, have at it, it's fine. But not for me. I'm done with this."

"Okay. Go rest up."

"Thanks. You coming down to visit anytime soon?"

"Spring break is next week, and I'm Ducky's plus one for Tony and Ziva's wedding."

"Should I tell Ziva to expect you for Shabbos next Friday?"

"Yes, I'd like that."

"Good. See you then."


	166. Cherish

Abby wasn't entirely sure what she was going to come home to.

Tim. That was a given.

Tim in what sort of state was what she was wondering about.

She knew he had talked to Ducky yesterday. Two reasons for that, first of all, he told her he was going to talk to him, and secondly, Ducky wandered over to her lab and had lunch with her. And while it's true that he's an excellent secret keeper, apparently when it comes to things like this he considers Tim and Abby to be one person, so he made sure that she knew everything they'd talked about.

Ducky seemed especially concerned that Tim might have thought that he deserved some of the things John had said to him. Abby was fairly sure that something got lost in translation there, because she'd never gotten that sense from Tim, but she'd also seen how blindsided he'd been by the idea that the other adults in his life had failed him, which is making her think that she understands what happened between John and Tim very differently than how Tim understands it.

And when she got home yesterday, it was pretty clear he wasn't his usual self.

Not depressed or in pain or weepy, but he was working extremely hard on not thinking about something, and she had a pretty good idea of what something was.

Apparently he talked to Ducky, got home, took a nap, made a call to see about some basketball tickets, and then watched thirteen episodes of Supernatural back to back, and yeah, he likes that show, but… But that's not Gosh-this-is-so-good-I-can't-put-it-down. That's I'm-keeping-my-brain-active-so-I-don't-have-to-dea l-with-what's-really-going-on.

Though, as she thought about it, that probably wasn't all of what was going on there. Supernatural is, at its heart, two brothers surviving after years of abuse or near abuse (it's never out and out stated, but it's hinted at) by their father. Who's name is John. Who's ex-military. Who's training them to be soldiers. Who thinks they're too soft for the war at hand and need to be toughened up to be able to fight it. It's about Dean who stayed, became the man his father wanted him to be, and broke under it. It's about Sam who left, who refused to be the man his father wanted, and got sucked back into it, and broke because he wasn't strong enough for what came later. And it's about Bobby, a new father figure, who loves them no matter what, encourages them to be the men they need to be, and forgives all transgressions.

She wondered if Tim knew why he was binging on Supernatural.

As a general rule, Abby's not really great at just letting things be. She's especially not good at just letting things be when they involve people she loves dealing with things that are painful. So, yesterday, she got home, and for an hour they ate dinner and watched more Supernatural, which was all she could take without flat out asking about it, and he shook his head, not ready to talk, so even though she wanted to bombard him with questions and hugs and petting and comfort and offers to kill his dad, she didn't. She sat next to him, snuggled, and quietly watched six more episodes of Supernatural until Tim was having a hard time keeping his eyes open and they went to bed.

He was still asleep when she had to get up for work, so she let him sleep and headed in to do paperwork.

She was filling out her reports when her phone chimed to let her know she had a text from Tim. A very sexy text. And playing nurse certainly sounded good. It's been six days, and the last time they went that long without sex he was in North Carolina, so that was nice, but she was uncertain where he is mentally, and if desire for sex is genuine or just a way to push thinking about things further back.

She thought it was probably a bit of both. Since he's been sick, she's been sleeping spooned behind him, cuddling him, but if she had been in the front this morning, she certainly would have taken advantage of him. Some morning erections are more impressive than others, and this morning was extremely impressive. She had been very tempted to roll him on his back, wake him up very nicely, and go into work late, but she'd already called out one day that week, and he was out sick, so duty won and she made it work on time.

Besides, he is sick and needs all the rest he can get.

So, basically, as she walks in the door, she's not sure if he's going to be ready to pounce on her for sex, glued to Sam and Dean, in the midst of an existential crisis, or getting a nap.

She was, however, wearing a pair of scrubs she'd stolen from Autopsy on the off chance the answer is ready to pounce.

Abby didn't hear anything as she hung her jacket up, which increased the chances of nap or existential crisis, and took Sam and Dean out of the running. She did a quick circuit of the downstairs. No Tim. That took existential crisis off the list, as well, because anything along those lines happens in his office and usually is accompanied by the sound of typing. (Though she noticed there was a blank sheet of paper in his typewriter and a half filled sheet of Deep Six next to it, so something along those lines at least started…)

In the kitchen, she noticed he did have curry chicken going in the slow cooker, so that was good, and pointed toward nap or sex, both of which he'd probably want to have quick, easy food available for after.

She headed upstairs, quietly, and looked into their room.

Usually Tim sleeps on his side or stomach, but right now he's sprawled across the bed, on his back.

She's half-wondering if he heard her come in and is staging this, or if he's really asleep. He looks (position aside) really asleep: eyes closed, face relaxed, mouth a little open, breathing soft and easy.

But, the thing is, he is laying on his back, which he almost never does, and laying on his back means he's in one of the few positions where you can tell that the guy under the blankets is sporting a massive erection.

So, she's not entirely certain about nap, but sex got bumped to the top of the list.

For a few seconds, she plays with the idea that Farewell To Arms is one of his favorite books and about a nurse fooling around with one of her patients, but she can't remember the character names (hasn't read it since high school), and her sense is that it ended badly, so that's probably not a great game fodder.

She wonders if he's naked under the blankets. He's got them up to his chin. (Also suggestive of really sleeping, especially in winter. If it wasn't for the fact that he hates to have anything on his face, he'd sleep entirely under the blankets when it's cold out.) Tim usually takes all his clothing off for nighttime sleep, but both of them tend to nap in whatever they happened to be wearing when the desire to nap hit. At least, she does. He doesn't get naps all that often, so he doesn't exactly have a 'regular napping routine.' But, at least for this last week, if he's grabbing a nap, he's doing it in whatever he was wearing when he drifted off.

He's also been home alone all day, so it's entirely possible he didn't bother to get dressed at all.

Nah. It's cool enough he'd put some clothing on. He's got no issues with being naked around the house, but he also hates feeling cold, so he's usually got something on if he's not in bed or the shower.

Okay, enough dithering. He's either sleeping or not, naked or not, and there's no way to figure it out by leaning against the door.

She's in scrubs, he'd texted her about playing doctor, and no matter else is going on, his dick is very obviously interested in sex. Time to get to it.

He's got a cup of tea on the bedside table, that'd do for props.

Abby headed over to him, and gently rubbed his shoulder while saying, "Mr. McGee."

He had to be dreaming. She noticed his eyes fluttering quickly and the way he didn't stir at all when she said his name or touched him.

"Mr. McGee…" she shook his shoulder a little harder. He mumbled something disappointed sounding and rolled onto his side.

"Time to wake up, Mr. McGee. Time for your medicine."

He had a very confused and grumpy expression on his face when he opened the one eye. But confused and grumpy rapidly vanished when he saw Abby in scrubs and then he knew what was going on and didn't seem to mind getting woken up any more.

She smiled at him, seeing the realization that the sex he had been dreaming about was about to get switched out for real sex light his face.

Abby helped him sit up, noticed that he at least had a t-shirt on, and handed him the cup of tea. He drank some, just rolling with the game and the "medicine", and handed it back to her.

"Good." She said, lying her hand on his forehead. "No fever. You look like you're starting to feel better."

He nodded. "Yeah. I think I'm almost on the mend. Maybe get out of here in a day or two." For a guy who was full on asleep and dreaming two minutes ago, and judging by how hard he was, dreaming about some really good sex, Tim is phenomenally good at switching into play mode.

"Maybe. I'm glad you're feeling better, but I'll miss seeing you every day." She pressed the back of her hand to his forehead.

"You put it like that, and maybe I'll see if I can stick around longer."

"No. I wouldn't want you to be sick any longer than you have to be. But maybe you'll come back and visit me?" she made sure to sound hopeful as she said that.

"Or maybe we could see each other somewhere other than here?" Tim said, a little flirty tone to his voice.

She smiled at that. "I'd like that." She folded the blanket back. "Arms up. Might as well get you washed off if you're going home soon."

So he put his arms up and let her take his t-shirt off. He appeared to be looking forward to this sponge bath. If the smile on his face was anything to go by, really looking forward to it. She helped him scoot out of his flannel pj pants, and yeah, he'd definitely been dreaming of sex. Abby knows guys get hard-ons when they sleep, that it's just part of the body functioning. But there's everything's just working, and then there's standing at full attention, balls tight to the body, damp spot on the pants, which she knows means Tim was about a minute from coming in his sleep.

She looked up from his penis and grinned. "Looks like part of you is really looking forward to a bath."

He smiled back. "That part of me is always in favor of being handled by a beautiful woman."

She headed for their bathroom, grabbed a wash cloth, soaked it with hot water, and headed back to their bed.

He was laying on the bed in way too good of a mood to be convincingly sick, but she doesn't mind that at all.

She knelt on the bed next to him, stretched his arm to the side, and gently stroked the towel up his arm. Tim purred at that, and then he sort of jerked because she got to his armpit, which was apparently ticklish, and then suddenly he looked like he wasn't having a really great time anymore.

"Abigail." He broke the game with his safe word. "Not this."

"No?" She looked concerned, obviously something was off, this was great two seconds ago, but isn't now.

"No." He's rubbing his arm dry. "It cools off really fast and maybe in August when it's 95 out this'll be fun, but right now, not so much."

"Okay." That made a lot of sense. She put the washcloth on the bedside table, quickly shucked out of the scrubs, and lay down next to him on her side, facing him. Enough games, time to touch. "Maybe try that game again later?"

"Maybe." He rested his hand on her hip, eyes tracing over her naked body. "God, you're so beautiful." She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed his fingers. Then trailed her fingers down his chest, over his stomach, to trace over his erection.

His eyes slid almost shut, and he sighed happily, watching her hand slip up and down on him. "That feels so good."

"I bet it does."

"You know, I was reading that gentle sex is good for healing up from being sick."

"Really?" Her fingers trailed up from the base of his dick to his stomach and then across his chest, circling his nipple.

"Yep. Endorphins help you feel better, light exercise is good for you, stuff like that."

"Uh huh." Abby leaned in close, her lips a few millimeters from his. "How about rough, wild sex?"

He grinned, kissed her soft and gentle. "As long as we're done in less than a minute, I think I've got the stamina for that."

She giggled. "Gentle sex, then?"

"Well, I mean, if you want to get off, too. It's been almost a week for me, so anything other than slow, soft, and gentle'll be done really fast."

Her hand stroked back down his chest and curled firmly around him, and he exhaled low and deep. "So, you're saying you haven't done anything all week?"

"Nope. Nothing at all."

"Not even this?" Her hand pulled from base to tip.

"Ohhh…" He bit his lip and watched her do it. "Nope, not even that."

"So, how bad do you want this?"

"God. Bad, so bad. If you hadn't woken me up, I would have come in my sleep like a teenager."

"Looks like I got here just in the nick of time."

"Oh yeah." He inhaled a fast, jerky little breath as she lightly scraped her fingernail over the tip as her other hand pulled up. "Ohhhh… God, baby, that's so good."

She bent her head and licked the tip. His hips jerked when she touched him, and she knew exactly what she wanted to do with him. He's too keyed up, too turned on for anything that'll take long, and she's not nearly that turned on. So this round's for him, and later, after dinner, when he's not on a hair trigger, there'll be sex for both of them.

"So, really, nothing?" She let go, rolled over, and headed to their toybox.

He propped himself on his left elbow, watching her, not approving of her letting go of his dick and getting up, so he sounds a little testy when he said, "Been kind of sick lately. Maybe you noticed?"

"And distracted?" Abby asked, looking over her shoulder, a somewhat serious expression on her face. She knows now isn't the time, but she does want him to know she's aware of what's going on.

"And distracted," he agreed.

She found what she was looking for and turned back to him, showing him the wrist cuffs, and suddenly he decided her getting up was a good thing. She opened the drawer to her bedside table and got the lube as well, and the expression on his face was certainly indicating he was all in favor of whatever was going to come next, even if she did have to let go of him to do it.

"When you're ready, I want to talk to you about distracted."

"I know, and it'll be soon, probably dinner. But, please, not right now!"

"No." She grinned. "Not right now. Right now…" She nudged him to let him know to lie down on his back, straddled his chest, threaded the cuffs between the slats on their headboard, and then cuffed his wrists to each other over his head. He groaned while she did it, looking very pleased. He let his head fall back and just relaxed into her taking over.

"Head up."

He did as she asked, and she tucked an extra pillow under his head. "I want you to watch."

"Yes."

She flicked open the cap of the lube and drizzled a long stream into her palm.

"So, nothing at all for almost a week means you're really eager, right?" She slowly rubbed the lube between her hands, letting him watch them slip over each other, enjoying the intense concentration on his face and how his eyes were glued to her hands.

"Oh yes!"

"Good. I want to watch you come. And I want you to watch me do it for you."

"Oh yeah," he breathed.

"I thought you'd like that."

"Yes."

She knelt between his legs. "I'm going to do you nice and slow and steady. Only one rule for you, lay back and watch me do it."

"God, yes."

And she did. She used both hands, kept them fairly tight, slipping over him nice and slow.

He groaned at the pleasure of wet, slick skin on his. His eyelids settled into that three-quarters closed droop they go to when he wants to see what she's doing, but also wants to close them because it feels so good.

His jaw clenched as she pulled both hands all the way up and off him, and then all the way back down again, head of his cock slipping tight through each finger, in one long and slow slide. He rolled his hips in counterpoint, getting a little more friction, and she let him. She's not trying to draw this out, not much at least. Just slow enough so there's some build up and he can really feel it.

He inhaled fast, head back, almost pained expression on his face, as everything shrunk down to her hands and his cock and how good it felt.

"You're so beautiful, Tim." She shifted her position so she could lay on her side next to him. She kept up the long, slow strokes with her right hand, and twined her left in his hair, as she gazed into his eyes. "So beautiful." She lowered her mouth to kiss him, and he exhaled a soft ohhh against her lips.

He inhaled with a hiss, mouth open, body growing tense as he did it. "Keep looking at me, baby."

And he did, eyes glazed, lips wet and open, cheeks and throat flushed, jaw, neck, and shoulders tight.

"I love you, Tim. You look so incredible, baby, so sexy, and I want to make you feel so good. Wanna watch your face as you come." She moved her hand just a hair faster and his body tensed just a little further, not moving, not breathing, just teetering on the edge of orgasm. "God, baby, you're so beautiful, just come for me, please?"

He exhaled a long, silent, shaking breath as his orgasm slipped through him in hot, wet, wracking pulses that pulled his leg and arms tight as his head fell back.

She gently pumped a few more times, pulling every second of pleasure out of him, then grabbed the wash cloth, used it to clean him up, and uncuffed his wrists.

He was laying on his back when she uncuffed him, but he rolled onto his side quickly after that, and she curled into his back, snuggling in close, wrapping her arm under his, letting her hand rest against his chest.

At first, she thought the little shake that went through him was just an orgasmic aftershock. The second time it happened it was a little harder than the first, and that's not how aftershocks work. By the third one, she knew what was happening. She cuddled in closer, kissing the back of his neck.

"I love you, Tim." He shook again, and she knew he was crying.

When she'd been getting him off, she was talking because it was just right. It was that moment and he was so gloriously beautiful falling apart under her hands, and she wanted to say it to him. But now she's a little more focused on the whole picture, and so right now she knows there are things she needs to say, things he needs to hear, so she says them. "I love you for exactly who you are, and who you're going to be."

And she knows that he needs to hear it, and she knows that she's not the person he needs to hear it from, but the person he needs to hear it from won't say it, so she will, over and over and as often as he needs. And it's not the same thing, and it won't, can't fix things, but it doesn't need to.

"I love you. You are an amazing man. You're brilliant and gentle and kind and you are going to be a great father, and I love you so much."

She felt his hand close around hers, holding tight as he inhaled fast, and hard, soft, quiet sobs broke the exhale.

"You're my life, Tim. You're my home. You're the first person I want to see in the morning and the last at night and the person I want to see most through the rest of the day. I love you, baby." She lay there behind him, whispering soft words, holding him while he cried, trying to fill him up with all the praise and adoration he didn't get as kid, knowing she can't do it, but it doesn't matter that she can't fill that hole, he still deserves to hear it.

Until that moment, Abby had thought love and cherish were synonyms. Thought they more or less meant the same thing. But they don't. And this beautiful man in her arms deserves to be cherished every single day of the rest of his life.

She added a silent vow to their marriage, to the list of promises she will keep for him. _I will cherish you._

After a few more minutes he quieted down, relaxing against her. Finally he rolled over to face her and said, voice rough, "Looks like I'm not as done as I thought I was."

She flashed him a curious expression, because that didn't make sense to her. He closed his eyes, touched her face gently, kissed her, and said, "Dinner. I'll tell you all about it while we eat."

"Okay."

She kissed him, lips light and encouraging, holding the hand he has cupped on her face.

"I love you, Tim."

"I know."

"Good. Because if anyone ever deserved to be loved fully, madly, passionately, every cell of my body adores every one of yours, it's you."

He smiled a little at that and then sat up. "Dinner?"

"Yeah, I'm starving."


	167. Nothing Changed

They didn't talk a whole lot while getting dinner ready. She tossed the naan into the microwave to warm it up, and he spooned up bowls of the curried chicken.

In a few minutes, they were sitting at the table in their jammies, food in front of them, Abby watching Tim expectantly, letting him start the conversation. But he didn't. He sat quietly, messing with his food, not actually eating it.

"Do you want to talk?"

He shrugged. "Maybe… I don't know… It just feels… so stupid. So ridiculously stupid. Nothing changed. At all. Not like I just suddenly remembered this. Not like yesterday I thought he deserved father of the year and today he doesn't."

"True."

He continues not eating.

"Tell me what happened?"

"You said they should have looked out for me better, Ducky said it was abuse, and then everything sort of shifted. Like the whole world is three inches to the left today. Everything's exactly the same, but not quite where I expect it to be."

Abby nods, eating her own food. "Unsettling?"

"Yeah. No one ever said the word abuse. I know I never thought it. The kid with the black eye and the broken arm, he got abused. I got yelled at."

"I got yelled at… signed at emphatically… You got terrorized and degraded."

He looks up from the chicken he's been tapping with the back of his fork. "That's always how you saw it?"

"Not always. Before you started talking in your sleep, I thought you and John were kind of like Tony and Senior or Gibbs and Jackson, just rubbed each other wrong. Then you started talking in your sleep and… and suddenly everything, including the fact that you get sea sick but not plane, car, or any other sort of motion sick made a whole lot of sense."

"I really do get sea sick. Always did. Started throwing up less than ten minutes after I got on a boat the first time."

"I know. But even if you didn't, I'd assume you would now."

"What did you hear? At first?"

Abby looks distinctly uncomfortable. He can tell she doesn't want to say the words and is trying to come up with a nicer way of saying it.

"Just say it. Not like I haven't heard it, and it's not like prettying it up will help."

"You were talking about having your ass passed around a battleship to get the fag fucked out of you. That's the one that comes up most often."

Tim nods. "He only actually said that to me once, well twice really… It wasn't quite that the first time, but close enough. It scared the shit out of me, obviously stuck in my head harder than I thought it did." He smiles dryly at her, pulling his sarcasm into a protective shield. "And shockingly enough, it didn't do anything to make a battleship seem like a place I wanted to be, and somehow it didn't inspire me to want to sign right up to join an organization that might expect me to help gang rape some poor son of a bitch who ended up at my mercy."

She squeezes his hand. "Twice is about a thousand more times than anyone should ever say that to anyone else. How old were you?"

"Fourteen the first time, seventeen the second. He was really unhappy when I tore up the Annapolis acceptance letter."

"And what, he was only mildly displeased when he whipped it out when you were _fourteen_?"

"No. But I don't remember what set him off on that one… Got a B+ in History? Weighed too much?" It wasn't so much that he wanted to remember it, but talking about it brought it back, and he shuddered. "It was the summer of the boat. The summer I was going to get over being sea sick or die trying. After two weeks of it, I knew not to eat anything before getting on the damn thing, so I was just nauseous instead of puking, but I was angry, and my blood sugar was way low because I hadn't eaten anything since dinner, so massively crabby, and he was drilling me on quadratics, wanted me to do them in my head, and I could, but I didn't want to, so I stopped, told him I was going to be a surgeon and surgeons don't need to be able to do quadratic equations in their heads, and I was being sarcastic and snotty and told him if he knew any anatomy beyond ass, cock, and cunt and wanted to drill me on it, that'd actually be useful, and he went off on a rant about how men broke people and girls fixed them back up again. 'We break 'em, and girls sew 'em back up.' And then he got on me with how if I wanted to be a girl he'd let the guys on his ship cut my dick off and fuck a cunt into me, and I spent a few minutes dry heaving in terror and then did the equations."

Tim's not entirely sure what the expression on Abby's face is. It's whatever comes a step after homicidal rage. He is pretty sure it's a good thing for the Admiral that he's on a ship somewhere with a ton of sailors between him and Abby, because otherwise he'd be dead.

It took a few minutes, but finally she seemed to calm down and asked, "Did you tell Ducky you deserved what happened?"

"No. I told him I earned it."

"Baby, nothing—"

"Not like that. That was the price for being who I wanted to be."

"No one should have to pay that."

He shrugs at that, too. "It's entirely likely that's just part of how I've conceptualized it to make it easier to deal with. At least with that narrative I'm not entirely the victim of a sadist. There's some choice and control about it. I picked me over him and got verbally beat for it. I wasn't just a passive whipping boy."

"Okay." She doesn't look like she believes that, but right now he doesn't entirely believe it either, so that's okay.

"I called Penny today. Because I was thinking about it, and trying to figure out what they knew, and I told her, all of it, and she didn't know."

That makes Abby look angry, but a different flavor of it. "She should have!"

"She said that, too. First thing she said to me, 'Yes, that was abuse.' Second, 'I should have gotten you out sooner.' But she didn't know, and I don't think my mom did, either."

Abby really doesn't believe that, at all. "How could your mom have not known?"

"It's not like he said things like that when we had people around. Not usually. Usually if there were people around he kept to sarcasm and back-handed compliments. But everyone heard the Annapolis fight. I got my acceptance letter December 15th. He got home the 23rd. I showed it to him the 24th. He yelled at me until Christmas, but after that was done, once I stepped out of his office, something changed with my mom. He was home until January 3rd, and that whole time I was never alone with him. My mom or Gran or Pop or Sarah was always there. He was gone until June 15th. I graduated on the 17th. On the 18th, I was living with Penny, and two months later my mom had left him and they were divorcing. I really don't think she knew how bad it was until then, and then she did everything she could."

"She should have known."

He shrugs at that, too. "I never said anything."

"Don't make this your fault."

"I'm not saying it was. But… they aren't psychic. You can't know what no one tells you. And obviously he's not going to say 'I called Tim a worthless cocksucker and waste of talent until he cried and the little bastard still can't hit a target with a handgun. I swear to God that little cunt's doing it just to piss me the fuck off!' That never happened."

That step beyond homicidal rage look is back, but Tim watches her take a deep breath, force herself calm, and say, gently, to him, "Baby, you aren't supposed to go out with your Dad and come home crying. Not ever. And from everything you've told me a good two thirds of times you were alone with him resulted in you crying." She got up, found her purse, and grabbed a compact, then brought it back to the table. "And, look, I know you can cry silently, but your face gets all red and puffy, the whites of your eyes go pink, and the irises get really bright green, and you stay that way for at least half an hour, longer if you were crying hard." She flicked the compact open and showed him himself in the mirror. "It's been twenty minutes since we got out of bed, and you stopped crying before then, and it's still obvious in your face. So don't tell me she didn't know something was wrong. She's not blind, so she had to know. Penny lived three thousand miles away for most of your life and you didn't tell her, fine, I'll give her a pass. But not your mom. Maybe with the Annapolis fight it got so bad she couldn't pretend it wasn't a problem. Maybe she finally got scared one of you two would snap and physically damage the other. Maybe he was doing it to her, too and she finally had enough of it, I don't know. But she had to know he wasn't treating you right."

Tim stared at himself in the mirror, and she's absolutely right, it's obvious he's been crying. There's no possible way to miss it.

"I've never looked at myself after."

Abby nods and holds his hand as he keeps staring.

He looked back up at her, if everything was three inches to the left this morning it's about a foot and a half now. He knows he'd be in the car, in the back seat, coming home from whatever it was that resulted in crying. And he'd pull himself together, force himself to stop, wipe his eyes, take deep breaths, calm down, and then walk into the house like nothing had happened. His mom would look at him, ask how it went, he'd say 'Fine,' and go to his room, hide out there until he was fully in control again.

"I don't know what to do with this. I can't hate her."

"Don't hate her. It's not good for you and wouldn't help anything, either. But it's okay to be really fucking pissed at her."

"I…" he looked at himself in the mirror again. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath, shoving that to the side because he can't deal with it, not now, and went to something he could handle. "I started talking in my sleep, why didn't you say anything?"

"Lots of reasons. You didn't seem to remember it. It's obviously painful. You don't talk about it. When you do talk about your dad, you'll sometimes just pause in the middle of the sentence, seem to think about what you're going to say next, and then go on without saying whatever it was. You actively edit yourself when you talk about him, and it shows. To me that says big damn wound, don't poke! You get on great with Penny and your Mom, you adored your grandparents… I figured you were as close to at peace with it as you could get, and you didn't need me dredging it back up again."

"I was. And nothing's changed. That's why this is so stupid. The whole past is still exactly the same."

"How you're thinking about it is different."

"So?"

She scooted her chair closer to his and wrapped her arm around him, her head on his shoulder. She doesn't have an answer to that, so she forks up a bite of the chicken and holds it out for him. "Eat."

He took the bite off the fork, chewing absently. "Ducky was saying talking about it might be good."

Abby nodded. "Probably."

"Would you listen?"

It's a serious question so she gives it some serious thought.

"I will always listen. I don't want you to feel like you've got things you can't tell me. I will carry your burdens with you; that's part of this whole love and married thing, right?" She smiled at him. "But I'm not a counselor, and if you need more than just to tell those stories, I might not know what to do. In fact I probably won't know what to do, and the best answer I have, hunt down your dad and kill him slowly, probably isn't a good plan."

"Might feel good."

"Might. And if anyone could get away with it…" She's only half kidding, and part of this is making sure he knows it's safe to be as mad as he wants to around her. "But… Anyway… The point I was getting to is that I might not be the best person to talk to. But I will listen, always. Anything you ever need to say, and I will listen. And if you want someone to go with you and hold your hand while you talk to someone who does know what he's doing, I'll go with you. Dr. Wolf at work, or Father John at church, Kate's sister, Ducky even, they do know what they're doing, and you could talk to them. Or you can talk to me. Or you can not talk, and see if just letting it lie will let you get back to where you were… If that's what you want. Do you want to get back there?"

"Yes?"

She kissed him. "That sounded really unsure."

"It was. But, the day before yesterday was familiar and comfortable and functional. I had a context that worked for me. My dad was an asshole. My mom and I survived it. Penny was a lifeline. My grandparents provided me and her with a safe haven. My sister was a non-combatant. And all of it was on him for wanting me to be someone I wouldn't be."

"If it works…"

"But it's not real."

"Enough of it is. Your mom should have done a better job protecting you, but that doesn't make him any less responsible. And one thing is absolutely certain, you do not know the whole story of what was going on between them."

"That's true. Penny told me my mom miscarried three times between me and Sarah. I never knew that. Probably never knew a lot of things."

"Probably. And like I said yesterday, I don't hate your mom. I don't adore her, but… I assumed if he was doing things like that to you, he was probably doing it to her, too. Probably would have gotten into it with Sarah if your mom hadn't left and taken her."

Tim shrugs. "From what Penny's telling me, he might be a flat out sociopath."

She gestures with her fork in a tell me more sort of way while chewing, then points at his food, indicating he needs to have more than one bite of dinner.

"According to her, he always asks about me, wants updates and pictures, has signed copies of my books up on his shelf, and seems to really regret the fact that we don't speak."

"What?" That shocks Abby, too.

"Yeah. I don't want to get into what he's said about my books. We've talked about them exactly once, and it wasn't pretty. But he's got them? He asked Penny to get him copies of them? Signed copies? And I don't know if that's part of his everything has to look perfect at all times thing, or if he's just playing Penny, doing things he knows she expects, or what, but…"

"That's insane."

"That's how it feels to me. In what sort of world does he call my books a waste of time and talent and then ask my grandmother to get him signed copies of them?"

"I really don't know."

"And why ask her? Maybe for the first one, because of the penname and all, but if he wanted them... They aren't hard to find. He's got guys who's whole job it is to go do stuff for him…"

"If he wants her to think he cares, it makes sense."

"Yeah. I wonder if he's got Sarah getting him copies as well…"

"Could be. Are you going to ask her?"

"I don't know. She was barely nine when they split up. She basically never lived with him. They always seemed to get along. She loves him. He seems to love her. He even approves of Glenn. Who also seems to like him. I don't want to torpedo their relationship."

"You have no responsibility to cover for him."

"No, I don't. But I do have a responsibility to my sister to look after her and her happiness."

"Warning her your dad is a psycho seems to fall under the looking out for her umbrella."

"If he hasn't tipped her off to that in twenty-eight years, he's probably not going to. Day before yesterday, she didn't know any more than we fight whenever we get near each other. She probably doesn't need to know more than that today, either."

Abby shrugs, and he eats another bite of his dinner.

"Penny told me he does ask for pictures of us, and I am going to tell Sarah that I don't want her giving them to him. Especially not pictures of Kelly and any other babies we may have."

"Okay."

"No matter what, he doesn't ever get to be near our children."

Abby nods vehemently, agreeing with that.

He takes another bite of his food, chews, swallows. He doesn't look at her when he says, "I'm an adult. I'm successful. Beautiful wife I adore. Kid on the way. I feel like this should be done. It's been twenty years since I left his home. I told Penny I was done, and then you're holding me, telling me I'm beautiful and perfect, and it's not done… He was supposed to love me like that."

"I know."

"Penny finally admitted he didn't."

"Does it help?"

"Sort of. It's… honest at least. There's no more doing-it-for-your-own-good, deep-down-he-really-cares, doesn't-express-himself-well crap. That's refreshing… I guess. And it's not a problem with me anymore—"

"It was never a problem with you, Tim."

He deflects that with a shrug and continues on with, "And like you, she's never going to try and encourage me to get in touch with him again, or mend our relationship, so I guess that's good, too."

"But you want to be done, not good."

"Yeah. I want the day before yesterday back."

"You'll get there."

"I know. Got too much going on now to be dwelling on the past." He strokes her tummy and manages to produce a fairly limp smile. "Got too good of a present and a future to let the past ruin it."

"But it's still there because it can't not be there."

He looks at her, tired, sad, frustrated. "Yeah."


	168. Spooning

They talked for hours, and made love again, this time for both of them, and maybe things weren't different or better, but they were closer to normal, so that seemed like a good step.

Tim feels like, at least in regards to the flu, that he's pretty close to healed up.

It's fairly late, they've just had sex, and he's very pleasantly sleepy, but not completely wiped out. He's actually feeling really good, and is just waiting for her to get back to bed so he can snuggle in close and fall asleep.

For the last five days she's been spooning him, which has been nice, he likes getting cuddled, too, but he's ready to get back to their routine.

So he was a little pouty when she slid into their bed and tapped him on the shoulder, indicating she wants him to roll over, back to her.

He did, feeling a little disappointed. "I wanted to hold you."

She scooted up behind him, threading her arm under his. "You've got my arm."

"Not the same thing," he said, kissing her fingers.

"I know. But right now the curve of your back is exactly the right shape and size to support Kelly and it feels really good. Way more comfortable than the pillow." She usually sleeps hugging a pillow, and until last week it had been providing sleep support for Kelly.

He can't exactly argue with that, so he squeezes her hand, and tries to settle down, but he's missing her body against the front of his. "Feels kind of weird."

"Weird?"

"Yeah, you're supposed to be in front of me. My lips are supposed to be on your shoulder, your chest is supposed to be against my arm, I should be able to feel your breath on my hand."

He feels her shrug. "This is really comfortable." He doesn't disagree with that. That's part of why he likes being on the outside, having her to hold onto is really comfortable.

"Okay. Just isn't what I've got in my mind as sleep."

"You'll get used to it. Not like this'll work for much more than another month."

"I know. Just… I miss the way your hair smells."

She thought about that. "Lift your head."

He did, and she flipped the pillow around. "Now you've got my side of the pillow. Better?"

"Yeah." He twined his fingers with hers, pressing them against his chest, and settled into sleeping.

Almost.

He was about three quarters gone, in that stage where he wasn't quite dreaming but was very vividly imagining things when he noticed that sort of gentle rustling feeling against his back wasn't something he was imagining.

It brought him all the way back up to awake, and he just lay there, holding Abby's hand, feeling Kelly doing whatever she was doing, and suddenly it was really okay that he couldn't smell Abby's hair.

He lay there, awake, feeling Kelly… kicking? Swimming? Getting a little stretch? It's fast and fluttery, and the last two days start to slide into perspective, the past starts to ease back to where it belongs.

The past won't change, can't change, but it can't own him either. He can feel it, two lives, two insanely precious lives pressed against his back. Two lives who depend on him to be functional. Who depend on him for love and peace and home, and he's got to be able to do it.

And maybe the thing with his Dad isn't done. Maybe it'll never be done. That John didn't love him will always be there. Just like losing her parents will always be there for Abby, and losing Shannon and Kelly will always be there for Gibbs.

But just because it isn't done doesn't mean he can't leave it behind him. Doesn't mean he didn't build a life, a good, solid, strong life around that hole.

Nothing changed. Maybe he understands it better, and that's something he'll need to deal with, but when it comes down to it, nothing changed. Time to live like that.

Go forward. Be the husband and father and man his dad wasn't.

Kelly settled down, and he let his mind drift among images of playing with his girls.


	169. But How Do You Get It Out?

The whole crew showed up for Bootcamp. Granted, it got moved to Sunday so Tim could have an extra day of laying around and healing (and he's had strict instructions from Ducky that if he starts to feel dizzy or shaky that he is to sit his butt down and not move again) but it seemed like everyone wanted to see/be involved with how boats get moved out of the basement.

Which means this is going to go a whole lot faster than Gibbs anticipated. It's a three day job when he's on his own. This time he's got six other people helping. (With Ducky providing babysitting assistance so Jimmy and Breena can help with the teardown.)

Most of the outside of Gibbs' house is stucco and half timbers. That is, until you head down the driveway to what used to be the garage doors. There's ten foot high wood siding there, and that's the first job of the teardown.

Get the crowbars out and take off that siding. It's not particularly difficult work: set bar, apply pressure, move bar, apply pressure, siding falls off. It just takes a while. Or it would if there weren't seven people doing it.

He's a little wary about Abby helping out, but she seems to want to do it, and Tim's not bothered, and Jimmy just shrugs when he looks to him, with a question on his face, so he hands her a crowbar, and they get to it. And a job that normally takes him a full half day was done in an hour.

Gibbs makes a mental note that the next time he does this he is definitely dragging them all along to help. At this rate they'll have Shannon out by lunch, and might actually have the wall back up by dinner.

The next part is his favorite. It's true that Gibbs values and loves creating. Precision work takes him out of his own head and into the job in front of him and that's often something he needs. But just beating the ever living hell out of something and breaking it to pieces is a lot of fun.

And that's the next step. Sledge hammers out, and rip that wall down.

So, as soon as they had all of the siding tossed into dumpster, he was really grinning, holding a sledge hammer, ready for some fun. Gibbs took a good hard swing at the wall, demonstrating what they're supposed to be doing, and the rest of his crew followed.

He turned to watch them and saw something that stopped him cold and made his eyes narrow into the Gibbs stare of death. He took three steps and gently, for the first time ever, smacked Abby upside the back of the head.

"No."

Abby gives him a big, innocent smile and says, "What?"

Gibbs shook his head. Prying off siding was one thing; this was something all-together different. "No. Mudding, sanding, laying insulation, you're more than welcome to help with any of that. But I've seen those two fight, and you are not going anywhere near them swinging anything heavy around."

Abby knows bullshit when she hears it. If Tim and Jimmy's aim was really that bad, Ziva and Breena wouldn't be allowed nearby, either. Or more likely, the rest of the group wouldn't have been invited along to help, and they'd be well away from each other, beating on the wall.

"You're afraid I'm going to hurt myself."

Gibbs' expression is a very clear _yes._

"I'm not going to get hurt," she says it like it's the most obvious thing ever.

"Because you're going to put that hammer down."

Abby glares at Gibbs.

He looks to Jimmy and asks, "Dr. Palmer, is Abby swinging around a sledge hammer eighteen weeks pregnant a good idea?"

"No. It's not a horrible one or anything, but it's not a great one either." Jimmy turns to Abby. "Come on, you know just as well as I do that if it's something you do regularly it's okay, but no one wants a pregnant woman suddenly adding new strenuous exercise to her routine. Hell, they don't even want you to start jogging if you don't do it regularly, and unless this is way easier than I'm expecting it to be, it's going to be a lot harder than jogging"

She glares at Jimmy and Tim, too. Tim holds up his hands placatingly and says, "I didn't say anything."

"Uh huh. You were thinking it."

"Yes. But you can't prove it." He smiles, takes the hammer from her, and says very quietly, "All your favorite guys doing sweaty, manly stuff. Breena and Ziva'll be too focused on carpentry to enjoy it, but you'll get to watch. It'll be fun."

She thinks about that for a moment, and replies, equally quietly, "True. Take your shirt off?"

He debates that. If it was just the two of them… okay, yeah it's cold out, but if it avoids pouting, he'd do it. But it's not just the two of them, seeing the others staring at them, trying to figure out what he's saying to her, he's suddenly very aware of the fact that Gibbs reads lips. "Not now. Maybe later, if I get hot enough."

She pouts, very well aware of the fact that it's the first weekend of March and the expected high for today is 50. There's literally no chance at all that Tim'll feel so hot he'll take more than his jacket off.

He kisses her ear and whispers against it. "But no matter what, I'll tell you a great story about it tonight."

"Okay." She retreats to Gibbs' car and sits on the hood. "You guys want music with this?"

"We won't be able to hear it," Jimmy says.

"Stop trying to talk that wall down." Gibb picks up his hammer, swings, and starts the tear down.

* * *

There is one tricky bit of tearing this wall down. While it's true it's not load bearing, it's also true that his house doesn't exactly appreciate having one of the walls just vanish. There's supposed to be a supporting beam in what would be the space between the garage doors.

So, the last bit down is that beam. It gets ripped out really fast. Usually he hooks the boat to the hitch on his car, and pulls it out, but with this many people, since she's already on wheels, it'll be faster to just push her out by hand.

And they do.

Then a new one of those beams goes back up again, along with four others to make sure everything is nice and solid.

And they break for lunch.

* * *

Framing is when this officially becomes bootcamp for Jimmy and Tim. Sure the last three hours have been good exercise, everyone can feel they've been working and they're nicely warmed up.

The girls and Tony get sent to shop for/start on dinner (chili and cornbread) while Gibbs grabs his framing hammer, two back up ones, and a whole lot of nails. The three of them are going to do this together. He wants Tim and Jimmy to have a lot of room to work, and he wants to be able to watch and focus on what they're doing.

"Here's where precision comes in. I want both of you to sink those nails with two hits. One to set it." And Gibbs gave his nail a little tap, just enough to get the tip into the wood and let it stand up. "And one to drive it home." And then he whacked it dead on, setting it smooth into the wood. He hands both of them hammers and nails. "Show me what you've got."

And they've got the kind of skills you'd expect guys who haven't actually hammered a nail into wood since they took shop in seventh grade to have. Namely, they're bad at it. (Tim's muttering under his breath about why couldn't they be wiring something.)

But Gibbs has time, and patience, and, well, a lot of lumber. He's using a framing hammer and connecting the studs to the headers. They've got siding rescued from the dumpster. He'll secure a stud, hearing the sound of hammers hitting wood, nicking nails, quiet swearing in both Tim and Jimmy's voices, and the occasional sweet sound of a solid, dead-on hit, then circle over to see how they're doing.

Like any other precision work, it's just a matter of form and practice. So he keeps showing them the right way to do it, and letting them do it over and over. Eventually, they'll get it.

He's got the first half of the wall almost finished when he realizes he's hearing a whole lot less hammers hitting wood and a whole lot more solid hits. So he finishes with the stud he was working on, and turns to watch the guys work.

Much better. Sure, he wouldn't want to live in a house built by either of them or anything, but they're creeping up on competent, so it's time to get them working on the wall.

"Time to join the major league." They both look up, and at him, and the large wooden rectangle on the basement floor. "First thing first, we pick this one up, and screw it into the floor, nail it into the ceiling. Then we frame the second half."

It's heavy. Not insanely heavy, but not easy to move around either, and it's half a wall so it's not exactly conveniently shaped for easy maneuverability, but between the three of them getting it manhandled into place isn't a problem. Tim's keeping it steady (because he's the tallest) while Gibbs nails it to the ceiling and Jimmy screws it to the floor.

"How do you do this by yourself?" Jimmy asks Gibbs.

"Build 'em in smaller sections on my own."

"So why is Tony up with the girls? He already know how to drive a nail?" Jimmy asks as he places another screw.

"Keeping an eye on two of you is enough. Plus he and Ziva make really good chili."

"Good point," Tim says. "Also, good for us. I talked to my cousin, so I can get us last minute March Madness Tickets, and apparently they've even got a game that's being hosted by Ohio State this year, and one at UNC which is closer to us. What we can't do is get tickets to the final four games because they're April 6th and 7th and Ziva would be really pissed if we pre-empted their honeymoon for his bachelor party."

Jimmy's nodding at that. Gibbs is staring at them, still a step behind.

Jimmy sees the stare. "Breena noticed that Ohio State made March Madness this year and suggested that if we could get tickets to one of the games, preferably one they were playing in, Tony would probably like that."

"And since we're kind of out of non-sex bachelor party ideas that he'd like, I jumped on that as soon as Jimmy mentioned it."

"What dates do you have?" Jimmy asks.

"UNC and Ohio State are both on the 20th. So… it's just a matter of guessing where his team might be, if they make it, or deciding to just go for Ohio State and spend a night with Tony reliving his glory days?"

Gibbs answered that one. "No. I almost strangled him the first time he was going on and on about spring break and college. Get the North Carolina tickets."

Tim took out his phone and started texting.

"You know…" Jimmy said, "Chapel Hill is actually under our jurisdiction. If there were a fictional dead sailor down there, he'd believe it. I bet Vance would let you take the van for the night, especially if there wasn't an actual active case. I could meet you guys there. He wouldn't know what was going on until we got there. Might be a cool surprise."

Tim smiles, he likes that, but he's not sure about Gibbs. Gibbs just nods, looking satisfied. Which was when they heard the car pull back into the driveway. Tony and the girls were back with ingredients and ready to get cooking. Meanwhile, they had half a wall left to frame.

* * *

The second half of the wall went faster than the first. Even with Tim and Jimmy not being expert carpenters by any stretch of anyone's imagination, three men framing is still faster than one.

Once they got the studs up Tony and Breena joined them for putting up the particle board. Tim enjoys watching Gibbs' face as he sees that Breena actually knows what to do with a drill and is better than any of the guys with one.

Because she's so cute and traditionally feminine it's easy to miss that Breena Palmer was a tomboy. Sure she liked dresses and long hair and cute makeup and pretty nails, but she also liked spending time with her daddy hunting, building things, and eventually working the family business. And while it's true that Ed's not much fun to be around, it's also true that he has three daughters and he was bound and determined that they'd be able to do anything they ever needed to do for themselves. So his girls can do everything from sew on a button to change the oil in their cars, to cook a tasty meal to rewire a fuse box.

She's screwing the particle board to the studs, hands sure and steady, and Gibbs just watches and smiles, a very pleased look on his face. Tim realizes that Breena looks a little like Kelly might have if she had grown up, and was about the right age, a little young, but not too much. He wonders if Kelly had a similar personality to Breena.

They'd just about gotten the particle board up when Gibbs asks her, "You know how to put up drywall?"

"Yep."

"Insulation?"

"Sure. Maybe if Vance ever lets all of you out of DC again, you can come to the Outer Banks with us and see the house I helped build."

"Your dad built that house?" Tim asks, stunned.

"My dad, my mom, my grandparents, two uncles, their wives, me, my sisters Amy, Beth, and Jill, my cousins Seth, Wes, Ben, and John, whole family did it. Did the same thing with the place in Tennessee and the one in Maine. My dad and uncles bought land in their favorite vacation spots, and then they helped each other build houses on them. All three of them use the houses, but the Outer Banks one is Dad's, the Knoxville one is Uncle Todd's, and the one in Maine is Uncle Alvin's."

Gibbs nods, looking like his estimation of Ed Slater and the rest of his family just hopped up about six notches. "Good, take Tony, grab Abby and Ziva, and head in. I'll get these two finishing up out here and join you in a few minutes."

* * *

Finishing up meant tacking up Tyvek sheeting. Tim took a bit longer on it than was strictly necessary.

"It doesn't take that long to staple up insulation," Jimmy said, noticing the lack of speed on Tim's half of the job.

"I know. But have you ever put up insulation before?"

"No."

"Not fun. Unless you enjoy picking hundreds of tiny glass splinters out of your skin, take a little longer and let them do it."

"Good point."

"I think Jethro just fell in love with your wife."

Jimmy smiles. "I was noticing that. I don't think I've ever seen him look so happy as he did when he handed her the drill and didn't have to explain how to use it."

Tim laughs a little, very slowly and carefully places the staple gun, and finishes the Tyvek.

"And we've taken as long as we can on this."

So they headed inside. Inside Gibbs' house smelled great: warm, meaty, spicy. Tim doesn't even really like chili, and his mouth is watering at the smell.

"I hope they made a ton of that," Jimmy says as they head to the basement.

"Oh yeah."

* * *

Five people make really fast work of insulating a twenty foot wall. They were done with it and putting up the drywall by the time Tim and Jimmy joined them.

Gibbs and Tony are holding the drywall in place, and the girls are on screw driving duty. Gibbs looks over his shoulder at them and flashes his, _took you long enough_ look at Tim and Jimmy. Jimmy shrugs. Tim smiles.

They both head over and get to work.

* * *

"So, once you get her done, what are you going to do with her?" Breena asks Jethro as they all sit down for dinner.

Jethro shrugs. His original plan was to use Shannon as a way to deal with retirement. Hand in his badge and get off land for a few months, but retirement starts in January, and he's fairly sure he's not going to want to be away for months at a time.

"No set plans, yet."

"Island hopping? New beach every week?" Abby asks.

"Maybe." Gibbs nods at that, beaches sound good.

"Be a good way to get out of the cold and snow," Tim adds.

He nods at that, too, he's not exactly a fan of winter these days. But finding a beach somewhere with a little shack and a cantina within easy walking distance brings back too many memories of Mike. He's good with alone, but that's not something he wants to do alone. And it's hitting him that he doesn't want to be alone, not for months or weeks at a time.

"Might look for a place on the Potomac, maybe the James, or the Chesapeake."

"Closer to home," Ducky says with a smile. His own post-retirement plans have shifted with the addition of Molly to his life.

"Yeah, Duck." He stroked Molly's cheek. She was happily tearing through the corn bread. Then he turned to Abby and gently laid his hand on her belly. "Got some girls who might want to learn to sail. And since it turns out you lot aren't hopeless with carpentry, maybe getting a place on the water is something we could do..."


	170. Paella

Tim McGee is not a great cook. He never has been, and he likely never will be. He's mastered more than enough skills in his life and isn't feeling any need to go from being a competent cook to an excellent one.

But tonight, he will cook this, and he will absolutely kill it.

And it doesn't matter that it's got about nineteen thousand ingredients or takes hours.

His pregnant wife has been trapped in a courtroom all day, craving this, texting him about it, and he is going to provide it for her or die trying.

Of course, as he's unpacking spices, rice, and fish, it occurs to him that, just possibly, if he actually knew what paella was supposed to taste like, he could probably do a better job of making it.

It also occurs to him, that should he kill this, and not in a good way, that they do have a pretty good Spanish restaurant fifteen minutes from their house.

* * *

From everything he read, the bottom of the paella was supposed to be a little crunchy. He's fairly sure it's not supposed to be rock hard, blackened, cemented to the bottom of the pan, and very slightly smoking.

See, while it's true that Tim can and often does multi-task, it's also true that on occasion he gets so into what he's doing (gaming) that he loses track of everything around him.

So, it was the smell of something scorching that jerked him out of Halo 4, back to the real world, and the fact that he had indeed, killed, the paella.

He tosses the pan in the sink, filling it with water, hoping the burned on rice will eventually soften enough to be scraped out, opened the windows to get the smell out, and really hoped he could get paella from the restaurant fast enough to have it home before Abby gets home.

* * *

Take-out food is the best thing ever. Take-out food that smells great, looks perfect, and can be easily stuck on your own plates, looking like you slaved away at it, is even better. And, while it is true that if Abby asks, he will tell her what happened to Paella 1.0, he certainly would not mind if she thought he made Paella 2.0 for her.

But in that he was attacking their skillet with spatula in an effort to get some of the less scorched rice off when she came into the kitchen to see what he was up to, the chances of her not asking about Paella 1.0 were pretty slim.

* * *

There are romantic dinners and there are romantic dinners. For example, Tim knows that Tony and Ziva prefer the high-end dinner out experience. He knows that these days, any meal that involves both of them together and not scraping food off a one-year-old qualifies as romantic to Jimmy and Breena. For Tim, though, dinner at home, with Abby, preferably with good food, tasty wine (and okay, usually he prefers to share it with her, but for the time being he'll take a glass by himself), low lights, his music, and a "relaxed" dress code, often lounging on the floor in front of the fireplace is the definition of a romantic dinner.

Sure, it's not an expensive restaurant. And yep, they aren't dressed up. But they are snuggled together, the lighting is soft and low, the music has a tempo suggestive of slow sex, and if they were out someplace 'nice' the couldn't be anywhere nearly this comfortable.

And if they were out somewhere nice, what he did next would have been horrendously inappropriate. (Which wouldn't have stopped him or anything…)

Her hair is still up in the French twist she put it in this morning. One of the good things about Abby being pregnant is that her court wardrobe had to change. And she hates what she calls her Court Barbie wear, but he also knows she intentionally picks horrible court clothing to play up the fact that it's not her real clothing.

So, when she had court, and a tummy that refused to fit into her old outfits, he gently steered her towards some outfits that didn't look like they were designed for a six-year-old's idea of professional. And him demonstrating enthusiastically and affectionately that she didn't look terrible in the new outfits made her feel better about being in them and start just having fun with it. Like it's a new sort of dress up game.

And Abby's good at dress up games. So, now when court appearances come up, she actually plays up the sleek, professional, stylish look, and her hair also reflects the game.

Which is why it was still up in what he thinks is a French twist, but it certainly could have another name, but the important part in regards to what would have likely been highly inappropriate should they have been eating this romantic dinner in an actual restaurant is that her hair is up, the nape of her neck and ears are bare, and he's intending to take advantage of that.

After getting home, and the explanation for what happened to paella 1.0, she had figured out that a romantic dinner was on, and changed into her kimono. Tim's not entirely sure, (she's been teasing him with occasional little glimpses, but he hasn't seen enough to really tell) but either she's naked under there or wearing very sheer lingerie.

He's in his go-to sexy look, jeans, somewhat unbuttoned button down, sleeves rolled up.

They're both on the floor. He's lying on his side, propped on his right arm, and she's sitting sort of on her hip, back against his thighs, her legs folded behind her, her feet on his calves.

She reaches for her glass of water, and the slow pull of her arm against the kimono causes it to slip down her shoulder, confirming that if she is wearing anything under the kimono it's not any larger than panties, and inspiring Tim for the very inappropriate (should he try it in a restaurant) thing he was about to do.

He sits full up behind her, drawing his glass of wine close as well. Normally he's a one glass with dinner kind of guy, but the white Rioja he got with the paella is really tasty, and it'll just go bad sitting open in the fridge, and it's not like he's got to drive home, so he's about a third of the way through a third glass.

"You're trying to drive me crazy, aren't you," he says quietly against her ear.

"Might be part of the plan. You like it?"

"Yes." That was half breath, half word, all whispered against her neck. He felt the fine little hairs on the back of her neck rise up against him, and he blew gently on them again. She shivered a little, pleased expression on her face.

He hands her his glass. "Hold this?"

She nods and does. "Smells good."

"Tastes good, too." He dipped his finger into the pale gold wine, and brought a few drops of it up, gently stroking them over her lips. Her tongue followed his finger, and she smiled.

"Very tasty." She pulled his finger into her mouth, sucking the last drops off.

"Yes." He slipped his finger out of her mouth, took another drop of the wine and touched it to the shell of her ear, watching it slowly meander along the curve and then licked it off. He kissed the lobe, gave it a tiny nibble and whispered, "Delicious."

He took his index and middle finger this time, and painted a line of wine from the spot where her ear and jaw connect, down her throat and shoulder, to the spot where her arm disappeared under the kimono, following it with his tongue.

He smiled at her, eyes warm and playful, teeth ghosting along the curve of her shoulder. "I want to take you upstairs, tie you down, and play with you until you're begging to come."

And, yeah, that would have just been all sorts of horrendously inappropriate at a nice restaurant.

* * *

If Tim thought nine week pregnant Abby was the hottest thing he'd ever seen, it was only because he hadn't yet met nineteen week pregnant Abby.

He didn't particularly think he had any sort of pregnant woman kink. Sure pregnant Breena in a bikini hit his buttons nicely, but it's not like he ever went out of his way to find naked shots of pregnant women, or (Breena aside) spent any time fantasizing about then.

But pregnant Abby, tied up, writhing on their bed, begging to come, Oh God, yes!, that's hitting every button he's ever had so hard he feels light-headed.

There's only a few candles burning for light, and he'd started off with a massage, so the oil on her skin is making her gleam in the dull, gold light.

He's already gotten her off twice, almost gotten off himself, too, because he'd been rubbing all along her back and thighs, and well, she can't exactly lie down on her stomach anymore, but she can sort of kneel, ass high, face and chest on the bed, and, yeah, she was kneeling, and glistening with oil and her own wetness, and he'd been stroking her skin, getting harder and harder each time she'd moan when he hit something good, and there's only so long he can do that and not slip inside her, and even though he had intended to tie her up and spin her out, he ended up on his knees behind her, watching himself fuck her and, well, that's his favorite sight on earth, and as he felt her rippling against him he realized this was going to be done a whole lot faster than he'd intended, so he pulled back and stopped.

He'd promised to make her beg. And that didn't happen that first time. Or the second time, because well, she was still making those really sexy noises, and next thing he knew he'd flipped her over, and was laying on his stomach eating her out. And the whole extra blood-flow pregnant-thing means she gets off a whole lot faster these days and yeah, he's getting better at not accidentally pushing her over the edge, but really, she sounded so good, and he wanted to make her sound better, and next thing he knew she was coming again.

So round two ended with, yet again, no begging.

Which just wasn't acceptable at all.

Because if you look a woman in the eye and tell her you're going to make her beg you to get off, you damn well do it. None of this fooling around with easy fast orgasms stuff.

So, while she was calming back down, he went to get some of the ropes, and spent half an hour tying her arms to the bed, in beautiful, crisscrossing knots of red satin. Then he spent another ten minutes just taking photos, because they haven't done this in a while, and there's no way in hell he's not gonna have keepsakes. Her body, all soft and shiny, full breasts, softly rounded belly, tattoos and red ropes, pussy wet and open, and fuck, yes!, he has to have pictures of that.

* * *

He leans on his right side, trailing his left hand down her body, and began very lightly, very slowly, circling her clit with his middle finger.

No penetration. When his finger starts to go dry, instead of slipping it down to pick up some of her lube, he stops everything, slowly gets up, kneels between her legs, and lightly licks her clit to get it wet again.

His body's more or less screaming at him for sex; he'd been achingly close the first time he stopped, but this is just too good to rush. He's keeps gently touching her, slowly ramping up her excitement, but doing nothing that involves any stretch.

And it's working. She is begging. Hard. Hand's clenched around the ropes, back arched, writhing, pleading with him to just do it a little faster or harder so she can get off.

And he just grins, stops, lightly licks her a few more times, and settles back onto his side for more light touching.

He's debating on how to end this for both of them, and rapidly coming to the conclusion that he should have let himself get off earlier and then kept playing with her, because given how she's tied missionary is the easiest option to get both of them off, and it's also off the menu because Kelly's in the way.

Of course… there are other options, maybe less easy, but…

He shifts again to kneel between her legs, sitting butt on his feet, lifting her hips onto his lap. They can't hold that one for too long, baby weight shifts making it harder for her to breathe. But for a minute or two, which is probably all either of them will need, it'll definitely work.

And it does. As soon as he slides into her, hissing at how good soft and wet felt on him, she slipped from begging to the high-pitched, breathy, panting sound that he adores and knows means orgasm soon. It's hard to focus on what his fingers are doing, because her body on his feels so good he's having a really difficult time paying attention to anything else. But her body does clench on his, and her legs squeeze tight on his waist, which was the last thing he clearly remembered beyond hot, pulsing tingles and full body pleasure.

* * *

Later, when they were both cleaned up and looking for something to do with the rest of the night. (It was still only 8:45.) Abby said to him, "You know, we're going to break into hysterical giggling when Kelly asks if we've got any pictures of me pregnant."

He does laugh at that. "Yeah, that'll be an interesting conversation. 'Yes, honey, we do, but you can't see them.'"

"Why not, Dad?" Abby asks, mimicking a young girl.

"How old is this hypothetical Kelly?"

"Why?"

"Because if she's an annoying teenager, I'll be looking forward to horrifying her with the idea that I took naked sexy pictures of you when you were pregnant, but if she's six, I'll probably have a very different answer."

Abby laughed at that. "Maybe take some shots of me with my clothes on?"

"I could probably do that."


	171. Bikram Yoga

"I have been instructed by my wife and yours that I am to take you out and make you do something you consider fun this weekend, at gun point if necessary," Tim said to Jimmy as they got some lunch.

Jimmy rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, that's how I responded, as well. So, we have three options. Abby gave me a Groupon for Bikram yoga. She got it before she got pregnant, and had intended to use it with you, but it will expire before she and you can use it. We can do that, and if you think it'd be even more fun than watching just me try to keep up with it, we can get Ziva to make Tony come as well." That idea got a hint of a smile out of Jimmy. "Or we can go do anything else you might want to. Or I can tell them to shove it. I'm not going to make you go out if you don't want to."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"I'm driving her crazy, hovering around too much. Checking my email ten times an hour, waiting for the results of the genetic testing."

"When are they due?"

"Any day now, but probably Monday. And she wants me to do something to take my mind off of it. She especially doesn't want me just roaming around the house going bonkers"

"Anything you might want to do, I'm up for."

Jimmy smiles a little at that. "Ziva'd make Tony go, too?"

"Probably. She'd probably be up to going with us, too. I bet she'd love to see him try. I don't think he's ever done any yoga."

"And the way he teases us about it not being real exercise…"

"Yeah." Tim's nodding with a mean smile on his face, but that fades as he notice's Jimmy's attention has slipped away from him. "What are you hoping the results are?"

"I almost wish one of us was a carrier of the trisomy. If that's the case, then whichever one gets sterilized, and we can have healthy babies with an egg or sperm donor. We'd be able to… control it… you know?" He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. "If it was just random chance… The die can always come up snake eyes." He puts them back on again and ate a bite of his salad.

"I get that."

Jimmy reaches for his phone, stops himself, takes a deep breath, and says to Tim, "Sure, Bikram Yoga on Saturday, we'll bring Tony and laugh."

"Good."

* * *

"We're doing _what_ on Saturday?"

"Hot yoga."

Tony's very rarely so flustered that he's got nothing to say, but sitting there in the car, heading to question the CO of their latest dead sailor, staring at Tim like he's insane, he's speechless. Then speechless goes away and a sly look crosses his face.

"I know what you're doing."

"Getting Jimmy out of the house so he doesn't drive Breena insane."

"Sure…" Tony nods, smug, not believing it at all.

"What do you think I'm doing, Tony?"

"Surprise bachelor party. I haven't heard anything from either about it, and it's got to be coming up."

"Ah." And Tim does look like he just got caught with something, because, well, they do have the surprise bachelor party in the works. He got the tickets yesterday, Jimmy got Ziva into the conspiracy, and Gibbs was supposed to be asking Vance about the van today or tomorrow, that's not what's happening with this. "Really, Saturday, ten AM, hot yoga, with Jimmy. No surprise party."

That tosses Tony back into stunned, because of all the things they might try to drag him into hot yoga's just so far off the beaten path he's having a hard time wrapping his head around it.

Finally he comes up with, "Why?"

"Like I said, he's driving Breena bonkers, so I've been enlisted to get him out of the house, also because Jimmy likes it, and the sight of the two of us trying this should make him laugh hard enough to rupture his spleen, and he needs that."

"I get it." Tony sighs. While it's true that he's got no problem at all being the clown prince when needed, this involves something a little touchy for him. "You're supposed to do that in bare feet, right?"

"Yeah."

"Think they'd let me wear shoes?"

It took Tim a second to remember why Tony might want shoes. Took him another second to remember that since Tony lost those toes Tim's never seen him barefoot. When they hit the beach or pool, he's always got some sort of shoes on.

"I think if you explained that you needed them for help with balancing, that it wouldn't be a problem."

Tony nods.

"Or you can skip them. I mean… We're not gonna look or anything."

"Kind of hard not to." Tony flashes him a self-depreciating expression. "Lost all five on the right and three on the left. It's not a big deal. Not like I can't walk or run, but it looks really wrong."

"You lost eight toes?" Tim's staring at him utterly shocked. "You said a few! Ducky said you were fine. I'm sorry. I just… I didn't know it was that bad."

Tony shrugs. "Ziva knew. I'm sure Ducky did, too, he was still my medical proxy then. Didn't want it getting out beyond that. You do need them for balance, and I didn't want to find out that NCIS would sideline me for missing toes."

"That makes sense."

"But I can't really hide them in a locker room, or anywhere else I'm supposed to be barefoot."

Tim nods. "Look, Jimmy and I aren't going to say anything about them to anyone. And I'm sure if you tell the instructor you're missing eight toes that shoes won't be a problem. And if you don't want to… Yeah, we were both thinking beating you over the head with how hard yoga really is would be funny, but if you don't want to go, that's fine."

"Oh… it's fine to make fun of me for being clumsy but not for being a cripple?"

Tim flashes him a look best described as _Duh!_ "Well, yeah. I thought everyone knew that."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I'll be there."

"Ziva's invited, too."

Tony shook his head. "Remember when she got that third speeding ticket?"

"Yeah."

"Well, Saturday is driving school for her."

"Oh. Wow."

"Yeah. But if she can manage to not scare the instructor into early gray hair, then she can get some of those points off her license."

"Cool."

Tony pulls into a parking spot. "So, what do I need to bring for this?"

"It'll be hot, like hundred degrees, so something light and easy to move in, but probably not shorts."

"Why not shorts?"

"Because you don't wear briefs and if the legs on your shorts are tight enough to keep you from flashing everyone when your leg is up, they're also tight enough that you won't be able to move easily."

"McGee, assuming there will not be people lying on the floor between my legs, I don't think I can get into any positions where the leg of my shorts will result in me flashing anyone."

"Then wear shorts. Bring lots of water. Don't feel embarrassed if you can't get into most or even any of the positions, I probably can't either, just keep trying."

"Great."

* * *

Saturday morning they walked into the studio and were greeted by a rush of hot air.

Tony took one look at Tim and Jimmy and said, "Okay, doing this in a hundred degree room is cheating on the sweating thing. Playing poker in this heat would make you sweat, and that doesn't make it exercise."

"It's hot to help you loosen up and stretch," Jimmy said as he headed to the front desk.

"Uh huh."

Jimmy grinned at him. "And trust me, you're going to need all the help you can get."

* * *

Tim had told Tony to wear something light, cool, and easy to move in, and then promptly forgot about it because they got to the location of Colonel Phelps and he switched out of weekend mode and into case mode.

So, it wasn't until that morning that it occurred to him that he didn't have any good hot yoga clothing.

Well, that's not quite true. But as he's changing Tony looks at him and says, "Your pajamas?"

Technically the answer to that is yes. He's in a pair of very light cotton knit pants and an MIT t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

Jimmy's in something that looks a whole lot like boxer briefs, and nothing else. It's really tight, pretty short, and Tim, even if he was as cut as Jimmy, could not possibly image ever wearing anything that revealing in public.

Tony's got on gym shorts and an NCIS t-shirt, and from what Tim can tell is trying to not look directly at Jimmy, who is for all practical purposes, naked.

"You sleep in that?" Jimmy asks.

"No, I watch TV, lay around the house, and write in this. I sleep naked, unless I'm on a case, which is why he knows these are my pajamas."

"Ah."

Tony's looking at Tim. "I thought this was something you do."

"Yoga is something I do. Yoga in public in hundred degree heat isn't."

"You do it in your PJs?" Tony asks.

"No. I do it at home, first thing in the morning, with Abby. So it's not like I get out of bed, put clothing on, do it with her, then take the clothing off, get a shower, and go put more clothing on. Unless it's cold in our room, I do it naked."

Jimmy's nodding at that. "Easier to make sure your form is good that way."

And while Tim's sure that's true, that's generally something he's not paying all that much attention to. Naked Abby doing yoga is vastly more interesting to him than what his own body might be doing.

Jimmy looks at both of them and shakes his head. "Leave your shirts. Really, it's going to be hot in there."

* * *

While it's true that the front desk area was hot, the actual studio where they'll be doing the yoga is sweltering.

It's really, really hot.

It's like a sauna with good lighting and mirrors.

And Tim's not entirely sure that the sixty-four ounces of water he brought are going to be enough. And Jimmy was right, this is definitely a shirt free zone. And he's certainly debating stripping out of his pants, too. There's a little button on the fly of his boxers… He'd probably be covered enough, and still be wearing way more clothing than Jimmy.

He's reaching for his waistband when two more members of the class walk in. Girls. From the looks of it, they're fourteen and seventeen. So, pants are definitely staying on. And in what he's thinking of as his first 'Dad' moment, he's feeling a very strong desire to wrap Jimmy in a towel and not let him come back until he's got some pants on.

Apparently this Groupon was for an introductory class, purposely kept small so that each member could get lots of one on one attention, so it's the three of them, the two girls, and the instructor, who is also female and maybe twenty-two.

So, it's not like he can hide in the back or sort of blend in. But Jimmy's looking pretty loose and comfortable as the instructor gives them the little get-to-know-Bikram pep talk, Tony looks ready to die from a combination of heat and embarrassment, the girls keep staring at them (especially Jimmy) and giggling. Tim guesses he's somewhere in between and that's okay.

And then they get started.

It's starts off easy enough, even Tony can handle Half Moon pose's easy side bend, but it ramps up pretty fast from there.

There are twenty six poses used in Bikram yoga, and for the vast majority of them Tim was hearing Tony muttering under his breath, "You have got to be fucking kidding me," along with "Ow ow ow ow ow!" and "My God, Palmer, how the hell are you doing this!"

And Tim sincerely agrees with the last of those. Okay, yes, he's only been doing this for five months, and Jimmy's been doing it for years, but still… How? Human bodies were not meant to get into some of these positions and yeah, he can see Jimmy's struggling a little with some of them, this isn't his usual discipline, but all of his moves are slow, controlled, and graceful. And sure he may not have the full range of extension the instructor does, but Jimmy also isn't a twenty-something girl.

Meanwhile Tim's mostly just pleased he hasn't managed to fall on his ass (or in the case of the Standing Separate Leg Stretching pose, his head), yet.

And he's fairly certain Tony's just pleased that he hasn't died.

* * *

They're about half an hour into it when Tim notices something else. Yes, this was designed to make sure they all get a decent amount of one on one attention, and yes, the instructor, Jamie, has been working with each of them, and okay, it's true that Tony's worse than the other four of them, but he gets about five times as much attention as the rest of them.

And he's not _that_ much worse than Tim is.

He's bad at it, no two ways about it. And even if he wasn't eight toes down, the fact that he's got all the flexibility of a piece of plywood is not helping things, but even without the toes he does have a decent sense of balance, is generally good at any sort of sports, and is pretty strong. So, there's no chance that he's the worst yoga student Jamie's ever seen.

But he's getting a lot of one on one attention and some really intensive encouragement.

* * *

After they wrapped up, and were heading back toward the locker room, Jamie came over to Tony, looking up at him adoringly, standing a little too close, and said, "You know, if you ever want some one on one help—"

Jimmy cut in with "He's getting married in April."

"Oh." The expression on her face fell, and she shrugged and walked off.

Tim rolled his eyes. "You know, I was almost as bad as you were at this, and no hot girls are coming up to me to offer tutoring."

Tony grinned at him. "When you've got it—"

"And the it he's talking about is a naked ring finger," Jimmy adds.

"She'd have hit on me even if I was wearing a wedding ring!"

"Uh huh… That's why she sprinted off when I mentioned you were engaged. One thing you're going to have to get used to, women rarely hit on married men. They see that ring and run away. And if you flirt with them while wearing it, they get creeped out."

"You speaking from a lot of experience here, Palmer? Do a lot of flirting behind Breena's back?"

"No, I've got a better source than that. Breena's book club meets at our place every six weeks, and they have a really easy time forgetting I'm around. I listen in."

By that point they were in the locker room and Tim drifted off, looking forward to, for the first time he can ever remember, a cool shower.

* * *

No, it wasn't like he'd been planning on looking. He's been in a locker room plenty of times with Jimmy and never looked. Just like in the restroom, not looking at the other guys' privates is part of the guy code, but it's a tiny locker room. So, he's practically changing on top of Jimmy, who is, of course, also naked. Which means when he turns to grab his shirt, he does see naked Jimmy.

And suddenly why Jimmy doesn't have a problem with the zipper on his fly when having sex in public is very apparent. His pubic hair can't be more than a quarter of an inch long, so obviously getting snagged in the zipper isn't an issue for him.

"Oh."

He didn't realize he'd said it out loud until Tony, who was limping out of the shower, said, "What?"

"Nothing." He pulled his shirt over his head and found his wrist cuff.

"Didn't sound like nothing." Jimmy added, looking at him curiously, finishing drying off.

Tim rolled his eyes, looked down pointedly, then looked away and snapped the cuff shut. "Just realized why zippers aren't a problem for you."

Jimmy followed what he meant and shrugged a little. "A side benefit of not being wild and woolly."

"Side benefit?" Tony asked.

"Well, the main one is that she's not picking my hair out of her teeth, which means her mouth heads down there a whole lot more often."

"Ah." Both Tim and Tony nod at that.

"And well, it makes everything look bigger, which is kind of nice, too."

"I suppose you do what you have to," Tony said as he starts to dry off.

"Oh please, Tony, you're not setting any records." Tim said.

"You've seen enough dicks to know, McGee?"

"Not live, but yeah, I have." Both Jimmy and Tony stared at him. He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Don't you two even try to tell me you don't watch porn. Remember, I'm the guy you call when your computers mysteriously stop working after visiting certain sites. I know all your dirty little secrets."

Jimmy just sort of shrugged, and Tony looked really disturbed by that, which Tim found amusing because, well, Tony had nothing particularly troublesome on his computer (the kinkiest he gets is trios with two girls), but Jimmy's got some pretty wild stuff on his.

"Oh, and on that subject, google whatever it is you like plus Tumblr, and then don't leave Tumblr. You'll end up calling me a lot less often about your computers being clogged with malware."

They nodded and went back to getting dressed.

"What's Tumblr?" Tony asked a minute later.

"Fandoms and porn."

"So, geek heaven?" Jimmy said.

"Yeah."

"No wonder you knew about it," Tony added.

* * *

A minute later, while Tim's tying his shoes, Tony asks Jimmy. "Isn't it kind of prickly?"

"Huh?"

"You know, you trim down there, is it kind of itchy?"

"Only if you trim it too short. Shaving is where prickly and itchy becomes an issue."

"You shaved it all off?" Tim asks. Yeah, he knows some guys do that (once again, he watches porn) but he never thought any guy he knew would.

"Yeah. And, the first eight hours after were really, really good. Everything is so soft, and so sensitive, and well, Breena really liked it, and… if she's bare, too…" Jimmy appeared to be remembering something he really enjoyed. "Anyway… Until it started to grow back, it was incredible. Then it started to grow back, and imaging wearing skin-tight briefs made of sandpaper, that scrape against you every single time you move, and I mean every time you shift, step, hell, breathe, and it feels that way for like three days."

Both Tim and Tony were cringing at that idea.

"So you never did it again?" Tim asks.

"Not saying that." Jimmy smirks. "Really, those first eight hours, excellent. But I don't do it if I've got work anytime soon. And Breena did find some lotion that makes the hair grow in slower and softer, so that helps. But, ummm… if she's not willing to lick or suck all of you, it's probably not worth the growing back in period."

Tony nods. Tim does, too and decides he's dressed enough to head out of the locker room.


	172. Coffee or Why Jimmy's Got Game

They got coffee after. Well, they went to a coffee shop, but all three of them got cold drinks. Tim's thinking that even after drinking the whole bottle of water he brought with him, refilling it, drinking that, and spending a good ten minutes just letting cold water run over him, that he's still a few quarts low on his hydration.

"So, Abby got a Groupon for that?" Tony asked as he sat down, heavily, looking like he was fairly sure he was never, ever going to move again.

"Yeah, back before she got pregnant. The original idea was to do it with him. But pregnant means she shouldn't get her temperature over 102, and it's 105 in there."

"We'd go do yoga day once a month or so; Breena usually comes, too." Jimmy got out his phone and showed them a shot of him and Abby posing at the last place, then flicked to the shot of the girls together, and one of the three of them. "This was last time. Haven't done Bikram in years, but that was fun. After McSciuto's on the outside, we'll have to do that again."

"I'm volunteering for babysitting duty right here and now," Tony says, face serious.

"You really hated that, didn't you?" Jimmy says, shaking his head. He'd had a really good time, and managed to go two full hours without thinking about anything Trisomy or Jon related.

"Jimmy, parts of me I didn't know existed hurt on a cellular level right now. Each and every single nerve in both thighs are screaming at me."

"You didn't have to go quite that gung ho on it. Part of the idea is patience and easing into the poses," Jimmy answers.

Tony took a sip of his shake, shaking his head, obviously Jimmy's never spent any time with anyone who was ever serious about competitive athletics. _Ease into it._ Tony sighs and changes the topic a little. "So… Abby and Breena can do that?"

"Some of it," Tim replies. She's not as into it as Jimmy is, and he's got no idea how devoted to yoga Breena is.

"Breena's really bendy," Jimmy says with a fairly dirty smile on his face.

Tim grins. "So's Abby."

"Huh." Tony appears to be grasping some of the reason why you might want your spouse to be into yoga, even if you're under the impression that it's some sort of torture.

"Ziva's pretty flexible, too, right?" Jimmy asks.

"Oh, yeah. She likes… pilates. So, why did you start doing it?" Tony asks Tim. They both know Jimmy started in college after he was diagnosed with diabetes.

"Found out on my honeymoon that there are some benefits to being flexible."

Jimmy sits there, nodding, looking really smug.

"Like what kind of benefits?" At the beginning of the class Jamie had gone over the "benefits" of yoga, and Tony's pretty damn sure neither McGee or Palmer would be looking that smug if they were thinking about blood pressure, stress relief, or better posture.

"Have sex when you get home, see how it feels," Tim says with a smile.

"McGee, I hurt all over. The last thing I want to do when I get home is move."

"Then don't. Lay back and let her do you. It'll be worth it."

Tony stares at him, eyes slightly narrowed, while Jimmy nods and grins, saying, "The looser you start off, the more you can ramp the tension up, the harder you'll come."

Tim turns to Jimmy quickly. "Wait, Abby said she read that. Did you tell her that?"

"Yeah. She might have read it, too. I gave her some of my books five-six years ago. She finally test that out on you?"

"Uh huh."

"Good?" Jimmy asks.

"I'm doing yoga, and kept doing it even when she was sleeping every possible minute instead of doing it with me. Yeah, it's good."

"How did you even learn stuff like this?" Tony asks.

Jimmy shrugs. "Cosmo. Back when I was dating Melissa," he sees that Tim and Tony don't know who that is, so he clarifies, "in college, I saw one of hers, read something on Tantric sex, decided that was worth looking into further, and well, fifteen years later, I'm pretty good at yoga."

"I thought you started yoga after you got sick," Tony says.

"I did. I was dating her after I got sick. Look, Breena was with us when I said that, and it is true that I got interested in it and started doing it about eight months after I was diagnosed with diabetes. Just, diabetes wasn't precisely the motivating factor for why I started or why I kept doing it."

"You like tantric sex?" Tim asks. He's familiar with the idea, but hasn't felt any need to try it out, too much religion-y stuff to be really attractive to him.

"Meh." Jimmy wiggles his hand to indicate it was so-so. "Tried it, but never got into it much. Don't get me wrong, the positions are interesting, and the increased strength and flexibility are very good things, plus it was the first thing I ran into that really got into the idea of sex as an art, which I really did like, but I don't believe in Chakras, and don't feel any need to try and meditate during sex, I mean, I like to be paying attention to the sex when I'm having sex, so that part of it wasn't doing anything for me."

"Sex as an art?" Tony asks.

"Sure," Jimmy's nodding away at this. "I can't paint, write, or sculpt to save my life, but I'm a damn good lay. And I got that way because I studied and practiced. You weren't just born great at basketball, right?"

"I was born good at basketball."

"And then you really worked at it to get a whole lot better?"

"Yep."

"Well, on raw talent alone, I'm good at sex. And, in some ways almost dying was a very good thing for me, because it helped me figure out what was important to me and what and who I wanted to be. But I was also twenty, so basically, what I really wanted to do was have a ton of sex. And look, I was built like Tim, kind of tall and scrawny—"

"Hey!"

"Tim, you look a lot better than you did this time last year, and a ton better than this time two years ago, but you've got a ways to go."

"No I don't. I'm healthy. I look fine. I get enough exercise to keep me quick and limber and eat well enough to keep me trim. I do not need to be so cut that you can use me as muscular anatomy display."

Jimmy just sort of shrugs. "Anyway, I knew I was always going to be kind of goofy and a little awkward, and that I was never going to be broad shouldered or classically handsome, so I'd never be really hot at getting a woman in the first place, but I also figured that if I got great at sex, and looked really good naked, the chances of a girl deciding to sleep with me a second time would raise dramatically. And having sex a whole lot with one girl would work perfectly for my goal of getting laid a lot. So I read up and practiced. And suddenly, I was getting laid a whole lot more. Especially in college and my early twenties when the rest of the guys my age were still clueless. I've been shot down left, right, and any other direction you can imagine, but since I decided sex was worth studying and learning how to get good at, no girl I've been with has refused a second date."

"None of them?" Tim's kicking himself for not having figured that out on his own. Once Jimmy said it, it was blindingly obvious, but that was an idea that never crossed his mind. Yeah, he did eventually get good, but he was a hell of a lot closer to thirty than twenty, and really it wasn't until he started dating Abby again that he had the opportunity to really learn another person well enough to jump from good to great.

"None. Not saying I've never been dumped, but date one has always lead to dates two, three, four and on."

"So, you really did dump Lee?" Tony asks. Sure, he heard about it. And yes, Lee was using Palmer, but even with all of that, he never really believed that Jimmy ended it.

"Yeah, I really did. Look, I'm not going to say I minded the sex, because, I mean… it was great sex, and who doesn't like that? But I wanted more than to be her weekly booty call. I love sex, but I love women too, and I wanted the whole package. Getting off at work is great, but I was still going home to an empty apartment, and that wasn't."

Tony takes another drink of his shake and just stares at Jimmy for a long minute, like he's really not sure he wants to ask this or not, but finally he does. "Okay, so how do you get good at sex if you don't have any pickup skills? Isn't step one find a woman to do it with you?"

"Nah. Don't get me wrong, you can read until your eyes fall out and you're never going to figure it out without a girl around, but still, step one isn't grab the first available girl. Step one was learn anatomy and some basic technique. Step two was read things girls write for themselves—"

"I told you that!" Tim says to Tony. "He saw me reading Ms and couldn't figure out why I'd do that."

"I told you that if you wanted to get to know more about women, you needed to get to know some women," Tony says.

"I'm close to my mom, sister, grandmother, my best friend was a girl, and one of my partners was a girl. I wanted to know about the stuff they wouldn't tell me."

Jimmy nods in agreement with that. "Women will not tell you that you can't find a clit, even with a flashlight and GPS. They won't tell you your technique sucks. They really won't tell you how they like to be kissed or touched. They expect you to magically know that stuff. What they will do is complain to each other about the fact that you suck at sex. And if you read them complaining, you start to pick up some tips real fast. And if you want expert level tips, go find erotica written for girls, by girls, preferably lesbians, and pay attention. Then, once you've got that set, you go find a real girl, and you start playing, and you pay even more attention to how she responds to what you're doing. I have had women compliment me because I can actually figure out when what I'm doing isn't working, like it's some sort of magic trick, and it's really not difficult, you've just got to get your brain doing the thinking. But especially in college, that made me the wizard of sex."

Tim laughs at that. Back in college and grad school his brain generally wasn't involved in sex at all. It was certainly very interested in it, but tended to check out once the actual sex happened.

"So, you're what, sitting in your girl's room, and you just pick up her Cosmo and read it?" Tony asks.

"Yeah, pretty much. I'd finished my homework, she was still working on hers, I hadn't brought anything else to read, and it's Cosmo, so it's got a three-quarters naked women on the cover next to a headline that reads something like 117 Tips to Make Him Come So Hard His Ears Melt—"

"Those things are always so overrated," Tim adds.

"They really are. I don't think any of the girls who write those things have ever had sex with an actual man."

Tony's just looking at them like they're both some sort of strange insect and he's not sure if he wants to study them or run away shrieking.

But Jimmy just continues on, "So, I was all in favor of coming so hard my ears melted, so I got reading. And yeah, dumb tips, a girl tries to rub my dick between her wrists like she's starting a fire, especially without lube, and I'm getting the hell out of there."

"What?!" Tony says, stunned, holding his wrists in front of him, about two inches apart, staring in stupefaction.

"Really dumb tips," Tim says as he nods. "You know, the 117 Ways to Make Her Come So Hard Her Ears Melt things they have in Maxim or Men's Health might be just as bad." Tim's seen Tony's copies of those magazines, but never been bored enough to read one.

"Nope." Tony's pretty certain about that.

"Nope? You know for sure?" Jimmy asks. Last time he read a Maxim he was in college, and like the Cosmo he thought there were lots of sexy pictures and not much worth reading inside.

"Ziva reads Maxim as well, and she's let me know which ones are good and which aren't."

"Ah. Well, anyway, I'm reading her Cosmo, enjoying the pictures, seriously that thing's like soft porn, laughing really hard at the suggestions, and a few pages later I found the stuff on Tantric sex, and that actually looked good, but it was only three pages long, so off to the library I went, and a few inter-library loans and two weeks later, I had some stuff worth reading, and a girlfriend who was actually pretty interested in seeing what we could do with it."

"Twenty-year-old-you walks up to the counter at the library and asks them to put sex books on hold for you?" Tim asks. Twenty-year-old Tim McGee would have spontaneously combusted if he tried to ask for help finding sex books.

"Twenty-year-old-me was bound and determined to get great at sex. Plus the girl at the counter was a freshman and really cute, so I practiced my flirting technique. She still thought I was a dork, and probably a pervert, but I got the books I was looking for. And then I had a whole lot of fun with them. I wasn't flexible or strong enough for a lot of the stuff in there, so next semester I signed up for the yoga gym class and have been doing it regularly since." Jimmy drinks some of his iced tea and stretches. "I should probably be getting home soon."

Tim checks his watch, it's a little after one. "Yeah. Bootcamp tomorrow?"

"See you then." Jimmy stood and headed off.

Tony took another sip of his shake. "I am so glad I'm not doing that tomorrow. I'm going home, filling the bathtub with cold water and ice, and not moving for a week."

"If you're hurting that bad, your body may be telling you more exercise is in order."

"What it's telling me is that I'm forty-eight and trying to become a pretzel is a bad plan. I don't feel like this after jogging or sparring."

"It was for a good cause. He didn't check his phone once the whole time we were out."

"I know. And I could see he was really smiling when we were talking. After I get back from my honeymoon, we'll bring Ziva and Breena and do it again."

"Good."

"Why couldn't you two be basketball fans? You know, normal guys do things like go to a game."

"This is better for you."

"Yeah." Tony got up very slowly and began limping toward the door.

"Did you really hurt yourself?" Tim asked, yeah, he's sore; he knows he did something that's not part of his usual routine, but he's not aching.

"I hope not."


	173. Passing The Torch

For their fifth bootcamp, Gibbs ended up with two more kids.

He hadn't been expecting Ziva and Breena to show up, but if they wanted to come, he was fine with it. Plus, having Ziva's eyes and skills would make this more effective for everyone. He'd be able to get input from her for training for all three of them, which would be a very good thing.

He was taping up Breena's hands when he asked, "Are you… should you…" He's tripping over the question because it's kind of delicate and he's never actually had a direct conversation with Breena. Sure he's smiled at her, kissed her cheek, offered hugs when congratulations were in order, and told her to do things when that was necessary, and they've been part of the same conversation, but he's never actually spoken with just her.

But she seemed to get what he wasn't asking. "Do you think he'd let me anywhere near this if my doctor didn't say I'm healed up enough for it."

He nods. "Okay. Molly with Abby?"

"Yep. Rumor has it she and Tony are making dinner for the rest of us. Did Abby invite you for dinner?" Gibbs nods. "I'm thinking it might be just her cooking. When we left, Tony was trying to convince Molly she wanted to play games that didn't involve him having to move because he hurts all over."

Gibbs furrows his eyebrows.

Breena understands that he doesn't know why Tony's hurting. "They did yoga yesterday. Tim and Jimmy are fine. Tony pushed too hard."

He nods at that. He's had a few conversations with Tony over the last year along the lines of Tim and Jimmy are a decade younger than he is, in awfully good shape, and if he wants to keep up with them he's got to take better care of himself. "What sort of fighting have you done?"

"I punched a guy in sixth grade." That was about what he was expecting.

"Make a fist."

She did. It didn't look too bad. Someone, and here he's thinking Ed, taught her how to make a fist, and probably how to throw a punch.

"Ziver?"

"Yes, Gibbs."

He pointed to Tim and Jimmy, who also started pay attention to what he was saying. "Watch those two spar. First round, they do whatever they want. Second round, Jimmy, your job is to focus on following where Tim's going. Figure out where he's going to hit you and block him. Tim work on hitting exactly what you're aiming for, right hand or either foot." Jimmy's accuracy was solid at this point, but he was still having a hard time anticipating where a hit was going to come. Meanwhile, Tim had gotten his accuracy up to one hundred percent with his left hand, but right and feet were still iffy, especially on anything other than the first round. "Ziver, by the time they're done, I want a training plan from you for each of them."

Ziva smiled and led the boys to the ring.

"Okay." Gibbs turned his attention back to Breena. "You sure you want to be here?"

She looked very determined. "Do you think I'm any less angry, less sad, or less frustrated than he is?"

"No." Gibbs shook his head.

"Do you think I shouldn't be able to try and beat it out?"

"No."

"Then why are you asking? Because I'm cute and a girl?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm done sitting at home and crying. Taking down that wall felt good, going to the range felt good, and this might too, and maybe it won't help, but I've got to try."

"It'll help, maybe not enough, but it'll help. Come on." Gibbs led her to one of the punching bags. "Show me what you've got."

She looked at him, eyebrows high, apparently she'd been expecting something else. "Just hit it?"

"Yep. Hard as you like. Right now I just want to see you throw a punch."

So she did. Walloped it. No control. No finesse. Lots of anger, lots of force.

"How's your arm?"

"Shoulder hurts, wrist hurts."

Gibbs nods. "Watch." He made a fist and punched the bag. He didn't tape up his own hands because he didn't think he was going to be doing any punching, so he doesn't put much force into it. Then he put her hands on his hips, which startled her, and punched again. "Feel what I'm doing?"

"Yeah."

He did it again, slowly, very little force, with her hands on his shoulders, elbow, and then his wrist. "Now you."

She hit again, very hard, but this time her form was a lot better.

"Hurt?"

"Not as much."

"Good. Now, do it slow and do it right. When you've got your form mastered on your right arm, we'll move to your left, and once you've got it down, then you can beat on anything you want as hard as you want as long as you want. Until then, soft, slow, easy." He cocks his head at Tim and Jimmy. "Just because those two idiots were dumb enough to beat each other into a pulp does not mean hurting yourself is a good idea."

She smiled a little at that, and then focused on the punching bag and hit it, slowly, but her form was perfect.

Gibbs nodded, small smile on his face. "Keep doing that. I'm going to see how your man's doing."

* * *

He stands next to Ziva, who's leaning against the ropes watching Tim and Jimmy intently.

"You suggested she come?"

"Jimmy suggested she go shooting with them. Apparently that went well. Tearing down the wall went well, too. So now she is here. When I heard she was coming, I suggested coming with her so she would have someone to spar with. Neither of them will fight her."

Gibbs kept an eye on them while Jimmy ducked under Tim's punch and got him in the ribs with his elbow. "Probably a good plan."

Ziva watched them spar for another thirty seconds, Tim sweeping Jimmy's legs out from under him, and nodded. "Neither of them has enough control to fight someone without possibly injuring them."

"Yep."

"What sort of training plan do you want for them?"

"Little bit of everything. Started elbows and knees with Jimmy last week. Still working on fist and foot with Tim. He's better on defense. Jimmy's better attacking."

"I can see that. McGee usually wins?"

"Usually. They fight until one of them hits the canvas. Tim wears him down, defending, and then takes his legs out from under him. Jimmy still can't tell when he's not really going to punch and is about to trip him. How about when they finish their next round you and I show them how to really do this?"

"You want to fight me?" Ziva's shocked. They've never sparred before.

Gibbs grinned.

"You sure?"

He nodded.

"Okay. Rules?"

"No eyes, no balls." He didn't expect to be fighting today, so he didn't bring a cup, and he'd really prefer not getting nailed.

"I can do that."

* * *

There are a few things Gibbs knows going into this fight, the most important of them is that he is going to lose.

There was a time when he could have probably taken Ziva David.

But that time was twenty years ago, when he was as fast as she is and could use his size to his advantage. Now, he's too slow. He knows it. Has been too slow for a long time. And while it's true that age and guile beat youth and innocence, age and guile lose when they go up against youth, guile, experience, and superior training.

There's a reason why he's never actually sparred with Ziva before. Kate, sure, he sparred with her, because he knew he could take her, and that was that. But he saw Ziva David walk in, saw her moves and confidence, and knew he couldn't take her down without a gun, and knew that'd look awfully bad for his position.

So they've never sparred. As the Team Leader, part of his job is to be God on Earth, unassailable and unchallengeable. None of the three of them could ever see him go down. When he got to the point where he wasn't entirely sure he could still keep taking Tony down in hand to hand, he stopped making them do bootcamp.

But it's March. In ten months Tony'll be the Team Leader. Tim'll be moving along soon, too. There are other employees around the gym, and it's time to get the word out that the balance of power in the MCRT is shifting.

Ziva's their combat specialist. She's their fighter. And, honestly… he'd almost rather promote her to Team Leader. It's not anything against Tony. He's earned the position many times over and he's a great cop, with very good instincts, but Ziva's a little more focused, more dedicated, and a lot more dangerous. Basically, Tony's the better cop, but Ziva's the better leader. Ultimately, he'd like to see them share the leadership position, and he hopes that's how they'll handle it.

But for now, it's time to pass at least some of it on. And as he thinks about it, he does need to have a long chat with Tony and Tim and Ziva about what's coming up next year. They've got to start looking for replacements, getting a plan in order.

But all of that is for later.

The guys are finishing up. Breena's already come over to watch them, and Ziva wants to know if he'd like to tape up his hands.

He nodded, and she taped up his hands. He looks at her untaped hands, offering to tape her up, and she just shakes her head.

"No eyes." He's seen what she does with her fingers in a fight, and he wants to make sure they're clear.

"No eyes, no balls, and I will not touch your throat, either."

He sighed, sees Tim and Jimmy watching them, looking both amazed and a little scared, and gestures to the ring for Ziva. She headed in, and waited for him.

"Pay attention. This is what it looks like when someone who knows what she's doing fights. Anything she's willing to teach you, you learn." Tim, Jimmy, and Breena all nodded.

Gibbs' time sense slows down when he fights. That's always been true. It's part of what made him a good sniper, he could slow things down, see what was happening and anticipate what would happen next and then pull the trigger. But even slowed down, she is shockingly fast.

He's just trying to keep standing long enough to not be horrendously embarrassed. He got three solid hits on her and a few near misses when she did this thing where she was standing on one foot, kicked at his head with the other, forcing him to dodge back, shifting his weight onto one leg, and while her foot was whispering a quarter inch from his temple she hooked her forearm behind his weight-bearing knee and yanked hard, toppling him to the canvas.

His ears were ringing a little when he hit, but he was fairly sure the entire gym had gone silent at that. He knows Jimmy, Tim, and Breena were just staring at them, eyes wide and beyond shocked.

Ziva offered him a hand up, and he took it, wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek, big, fond smile on his face.

"Jimmy, how do you defend against that?" Gibbs asked. If he's going to get his ass kicked, they're going to learn from it.

"Don't get into a fight with Ziva."

That got a dry smile out of Gibbs. "Tim?"

"My Sig. I don't get into fist fights with people who can kick my ass that badly."

"Overkill. Breena?"

"One second you were standing up, the next you were on the canvas. I have no idea what happened in between."

"You're going to learn how to watch a fight so you can see what happened. Ziva?"

"Catch my foot up by your head and push backward. It's possible we both would have gone down. I may have gotten the hold I needed on his knee, but my balance was far enough off that it definitely would have taken me down." She turned away from Gibbs to speak to the other three. "I spent the first minute learning exactly how fast Gibbs is. The kick/grapple combination I took him down with takes split second timing, and after the first minute I was sure he couldn't match that speed, so I was safe to try it."

Gibbs nods at that. "Ziva, you're with Jimmy, you attack, he defends. These two are going to watch. Breena's gonna tell me what's happening. Tim's gonna tell me what to do about it."

"Come on, Jimmy," Ziva said. He ducked under the ropes, looking pretty nervous. "If you have a choice between defending or attacking, you want to defend. The defender has the advantage of responding. This is why, even though it looks like you are actually the better fighter, McGee keeps dropping you…"


	174. Nothing Lasts Forever

Dinner had wrapped up an hour before. Jimmy, Breena, and Molly had gone home. Which meant Gibbs was alone with his core team, sitting around the McGee's living room, and it was time to have a serious conversation.

"We know I'm leaving in January." Gibbs said, and looked to Tim.

"I don't know when, yet. I have to talk to Vance, let him know I want Cybercrime when it's open."

"Is it going to be open?" Ziva asked.

"I've heard enough rumors about Jenner not being happy to think it will be, probably in the next year. And I think if I tell him I want it, Vance will give it to me. He offered Okinawa when it opened up, and that's actually a better team than DC. I don't think he'll have a problem with me taking it when Jenner leaves."

"So, in the next year you're going to make me break in two probies?" Tony asks.

"That's the question, isn't it?" Abby adds.

"We can start bringing in new people now, see who fits. Make sure you don't end up with a new team all at once," Tim says.

"Dornaget." Gibbs says.

"Yeah, I know he's been waiting five years for a spot on our team," Tony said. "And… look, he's not bad, but I'm not sure I want him. He's been in the evidence lock up for years, getting rustier and rustier. I'd rather have someone who took a field assignment than waiting around for us."

"You sure it's not just that he caught you out on the Probie crap?" Tim asks, smile on his face.

Tony gives him a little glare, trying to figure out how to recover from losing half his team is something that keeps him up at night. "I'm losing my tech specialist, half of my precision shooters, my sniper, my connections to three quarters of every organization with initials, my interrogation specialist, my hacker, my only person who speaks Marine, my Gunny, my 'Gut', half of my intimidators, and two men who have my back in any and every situation, can read Ziva and I with a glance, will back any play either of us comes up with, and have been there for me every single day for the last decade. Dornie fills none of those holes."

Gibbs nods, feeling a whole lot better about Tony being in charge of the team.

"You've given this a lot of thought," Tim adds.

"Yes. At a bare minimum I need tech and an interrogator. Precision shooting and intimidation are my next highest skills. Quick enough on the subtle clues to back Ziva and I no matter what comes next. I'll give Dornie a shot, he's earned that, but I don't think he's got what we need."

"Between the two of us, Tony and I have charm, evidence gathering, questioning skills, fighting, leadership, explosives—"

"Two-thirds of my explosives team, too. Forgot about that."

"Lock-picking, precision driving, intuition, and tactical planning. We're short a lot of skills if it's just the two of us."

"I can find you your hacker," Tim says. "Either out of Cybercrime or fresh out of FLETC."

Tony looks at Ziva. She nods a little. "FLETC. Get me someone young, who hasn't been around long enough to learn anyone else's bad habits. Filling your shoes is going to be almost impossible, but I've only got two slots, and I can't have someone who's just a desk jockey."

"They graduate in May. One of my classmates is an instructor now, I'll see who he recommends."

Gibbs smirks at Tony, and Tony turns to him, "What?"

"You'll be twenty, maybe twenty-five years older than anyone out of FLETC. Same difference between me and Tim."

Tony winces. "Oh God."

Gibbs nods, looking really smug.

"Were you really Tony's age when I started?"

"I was four years younger."

"I thought you were older than God," Tim said, shaking his head.

"And I was. And if you don't want just Probies on the team, ask for the rosters on the Agents Afloat. One of them might want a land based assignment."

"Burley," Ziva said. "Where is he stationed?"

Tony's eyes lit up. He knew they worked well together, they'd all come out of the Gibbs school of criminal investigating, and he knew what they were doing.

Gibbs shook his head. "Running his own team out of Pearl. Don't think he wants to come back here and take a demotion. Really don't think his wife wants to move."

"You could ask him if he's got someone who wants to be on the mainland. Borin's moved up at Coast Guard, maybe she can give you a lead on someone who's not happy there but would be a good fit," Abby suggested.

"Maybe, but if you're not a good fit there, you're probably not going to be a good fit for us, either," Tony says.

"Are you kidding? I'd have been miserable with the Coast Guard, but I'm happy as a clam at NCIS. We do really well with round pegs, go ask her who they've got that's not fitting into their square holes."

"Fornell could give you some names from the FBI as well. Guys who don't quite fit in there might work really well for us," Tim suggests.

"So, you're scouting the best and brightest FLETC has to offer. We're headhunting Coast Guard, NCIS Pearl Harbor and Agents Afloat, and the FBI for talent. And for either side, I'd prefer someone who was a Marine or Sailor," Tony said.

"Monday, I'll make the appointment to talk to Vance about moving on, and send Geoff the email about who we want out of FLETC. Hopefully by June I'll have some people who we can start working with."


	175. DC Cybercrime

Monday morning Tim fired off two emails. One to Vance's assistant asking for an appointment and the other to Geoff Carter, who, once upon a time, had been one of Tim's classmates at FLETC.

These days Geoff taught Civil Rights law to the new Probie wannabes. He made sure they knew what was and what was not legal when it came to dealing with the wider world. Back in the day he'd been one of Tim's study partners.

He asked Geoff if he could get the CVs of two or three guys who were hot on tech/computer skills, preferably ex-Military, young, and with no previous law enforcement experience.

He got one back saying: "Want a unicorn while you're at it?"

That made him smile.

He sent back:

_If you've got one. _

_Our team is losing half of its members soon and I need a tech guy who can shoot or ask questions or speak military or something like that. And if he can do all of that, even better._

Half an hour later he got back.

_Does this unicorn have to be a he?_

Tim quickly sent back:

_Nope. Male, female, undeclared, somewhere in-between, doesn't matter. Knows his/her way around a computer, that does._

Two hours later he'd gotten an email back with some interesting looking attachments. He was just about to open them when Vance's assistant buzzed him and let him know that Vance had some time.

So he shot the email to Tony, said, "Let me know who looks interesting, and I'll set up the interviews," and then headed up.

* * *

There was a time when he found dealing with Vance to be deeply intimidating. That time is not now. He's not entirely sure when it changed. Somewhere between taking down Bodnar and his wedding. But no matter how it happened, it did.

Which is not to say he finds dealing with Vance particularly comfortable.

The man is still his Boss, still the head of their agency, and still deeply formidable.

So, while it's true that he doesn't have to give himself a little pep talk or anything, he does pause for a second before opening the door to straighten up and get himself into the right mindset for this.

"You wanted to see me, McGee?" Vance asks as he walks in.

"Yes." Confidence, his job is to tell Vance what he wants, and then make sure Vance knows he's got the balls to deal with whatever gets tossed at him. A little voice in the back of his mind keeps telling him to channel Gibbs. Talk more than Gibbs would, but project that same air of _there's nothing you can throw at me that I can't handle._

Vance gets up from his desk and gestures to the seats at the conference table. They both sit.

"Well…"

"Back in '11 you offered me Okinawa's Cybercrime department. I assume you did that because you knew I could handle not just a team, but a department. I'm better now than I was then. Everyone knows Jenner's not happy here, and when he leaves, I want his job."

"Uh huh…" Vance has that hard to read look on his face, pretty much the only thing Tim knows for sure is that he's not in any way, shape, or form surprised by this. "And what do you suggest I tell William Sumtor, Jenner's second-in-command, who is also under the impression that he'd do a good job with DC Cybercrime and has been waiting for Jenner to leave so he can take his place?"

"That I'll do a better one."

Vance smiles a little at that, which makes Tim happy, then says, "Are you sure?" which is less fun.

"Yes. I know Will, he was down in the basement when you sent me there the first time. He's great. He's competent. He's a really good second-in-command. And he's got the imagination of a bucket of cement. He will follow orders perfectly. He will do exactly what you tell him to exactly the way you tell him to do it. He's probably the most reliable man I met down there. But he can't think outside the box, doesn't innovate, and you know that about him, otherwise you would have offered him Okinawa when it opened up."

"That so?" Vance appears to be amused by this.

It bugs Tim when Vance does this. He's fairly certain that Vance will give him Cybercrime, but this testing thing, proving he's up for it is annoying. Still, as hoop jumping goes, this is child's play compared to his first five years with Tony and Gibbs.

"Yes. Sumtor's a good symbol for DC Cybercrime. Competent, technically skilled, decent at the job, but no spark. LA and Okinawa are high-tech, cutting edge, on the front lines of the cyber battles. We're playing clean up in the back. And it's because there's no one in the basement who knows how to give orders. No one's figured out that we are not supposed to be playing defense, but that it's our job to go out and find the bad guys, catch them at their own game, and tie them in knots."

"And you're the guy to do that?"

"Yes, because in the last ten years you've needed tons of secure systems hacked, you've needed feints, Trojan horses, and decoy systems, and not once have you ever called any of the guys in the basement, whose job it is to do precisely that. You've called me. Because you know I'm the guy who can take an objective, catch the bad guy, and figure out what needs to be done and do it without someone telling me what to do."

"I do. But running yourself is very different than running a department."

"It is."

"And Okinawa, which you are right, is the premier cybercrime division at NCIS is four people. It's a team, and a department in name only. And DC Cybercrime is twelve agents and two support staff. It's a real department."

"True."

"And in fourteen years, you've taken point on fewer than ten operations."

"Also true."

"And for all his lack of imagination, Sumtor is a fantastic bureaucrat. He knows how to manage people."

"I'm sure he does. And I'm sure his paperwork is always perfect. Of course, mine is, too." Tim smiles wryly at that. His is. And so is Tony and Ziva's when he does theirs. In fact, the single biggest change that'll happen when he leaves the MCRT is that the quality of the paperwork is going to drop like a rock tossed off a cliff. "And it's true I haven't taken point often, but the last time I did, I was managing more than two thousand people. But it wasn't keeping all those people on a leash, making sure they did the right things at the right time that ended that manhunt, it was having enough imagination to be able to flush Blen out. It was being able to think outside of the box and then rebuild the box so that he couldn't hide in it. And if you want DC Cybercrime to ever be anything beyond a tech center that plays catch up, then when Jenner leaves, you'll give it to me, and I'll turn it into the best cybercrime division on the east coast."

Vance looks mildly amused by that. "It's the only cybercrime department on the east coast."

"Only one for NCIS, but CIA, IRS, FBI, NSA, and fourteen states all have cybercrime departments here, and if you give me three years, I will have them all beat."

Now Vance looks honestly amazed. That's a whole lot more than he expected Tim to come up with. "And how are you going to do that?"

"By rebuilding the box we all play in."

Leon sits back, steeples his hands in front of him, and smiles. "I like the sound of that."

"I thought you would."

"When Jenner gives notice, you'll be the next head of DC Cybercrime."

"Thank you."

"And when he gives notice, your first job as Boss is to tell Sumtor you're his new Boss."

"Of course."

"And I assume you are helping DiNozzo and David find a suitable replacement for you."

"Trying. Just got started on that this morning. Looking to find someone to replace me and Gibbs."

That got a grin out of Leon. "Good luck on that."

"Yeah."

"Well, don't let me keep you from it."

Tim knew a dismissal when he heard it, so off he went.

* * *

When Tim decided to start getting into better shape, he stopped taking the elevator. Sure using the stairs wasn't a ton of exercise, but he figured every little bit helped, and it didn't add all that much more time to getting from point A to point B. MTAC to Abby's lab is four flights of stairs and that's usually about as far as he goes in any given day.

So his feet are more or less on automatic, taking him toward the stairs as he gets out of Leon's office, but he stops, turns and heads for the elevator.

He wants to say it to Abby first. More importantly, he wants another moment where it's just his, and if he takes the stairs, then he has to go through the bullpen to get to her lab, and he knows they all saw him head up, so they'll want to know how it went.

He's going to be a department head. He'll have guys calling him Boss.

_Wow._ He takes a deep breath, lets it out slow, and tries to let it settle in, then hits the button for the lab.

He'll be handing in his badge and his gun, sitting at a desk every day, coding until his eyes fall out, and filling out even more paperwork.

He's not going to see Tony and Ziva every day. He won't see dead bodies, either. No more running down suspects, at least, not with his feet, with his fingers will be a whole different story. He won't set all of his computers to searching for something, and then hop down to Abby's lab and use hers as well.

He won't be heading down there for updates on cases (and a quick smooch).

No more stakeouts.

No more long drives to go get suspects, or question witnesses, or talk to C.O.s.

No more bad take out eaten at his desk at ten at night while going over the clues with Tony and Ziva.

No more desk.

No more looking up and seeing the three of them working away on their paperwork.

He let out another long, slow breath.

Hopefully many fewer late nights. And even if he is on a case and it needs overtime, he'll be able to do it from home. Kelly's going to need someone at home, and he'll be there.

No more close calls. In the fourteen years he's been at NCIS they've lost exactly one Cybercrime Agent, and he was killed when Kahn leaked him. Not going to happen on his watch.

The elevator opens and his thinking time ends.

* * *

He pauses at the door to her lab, watching for a moment as she dispenses some sort of liquid into the tiny vials Major Mass Spec uses.

Learner's team is working on a drug ring case that got hot recently, so she's probably doing something for that.

She looks up from her pipette, jumps a little when she sees him lurking, and says, "So?"

He heads over to her, gently kissing her lips, and waiting for her to put the pipette down before hugging her. "You're looking at the next head of DC Cybercrime."

She squeezed him tight and shrieked. "When?"

"Whenever Jenner gives notice."

She was doing an excited little bouncing sort of thing, but his voice caught her attention, and she stopped and really looked at him. "You okay?"

He shrugs, holding her close, feeling her head against his shoulder. "I think so. Just, on the way down, I was thinking of all the things that are never going to happen again once I make the switch. And some of them are good and some are bad."

"You regretting it?"

"No!" He shook his head vehemently. "It's just… I won't see them every day anymore. I probably won't see you every day anymore, not here at least. There'll be no reason for me to come down, I guess once I get to Cybercrime, up here to work. It's going to be really different."

"It's going to be really good. You're going to be the Boss."

"Yeah, that's sort of freaky, too."

"Tell me about it."

He nods, understanding her own issues with this. Norfolk was supposed to close its lab in January. That didn't happen, emergency funding showed up from the ethers, but that funding was only going to keep Norfolk going until June. Supposedly, for real this time, come June 1st Abby would have two more forensic scientists working under her. And sure, that worked out really well from a maternity leave perspective, but she was pretty nervous about being the Boss all of a sudden, let alone sharing her lab with new people.

"You want to celebrate?"

"Not yet. Let me actually get the job. Want to keep this quiet. Among other things, Sumtor doesn't know he's not the next Head of DC Cybercrime, and when Jenner gives notice, letting him know that is my job. So, for right now, I want to just keep this in the family."

"No problem." She kissed him, sure that he needs the extra time to let it settle in. Then she kissed him again, suddenly understanding part of why he looks so out of it. "You're still you, Tim."

He nods, seeing her get it. Special Agent Tim McGee is a good third of his core identity, and soon, he won't be Special Agent Tim McGee anymore.

"I know." And he does _know_ it, but feeling it is a different story.

She kisses him again.

"I should probably get back up. Paperwork's not doing itself. And I got Tony a list of guys from FLETC to look at, got to see what he's thinking about them."

"Okay." One last kiss, soft, gentle, supportive, and then he heads toward the stairs.

* * *

When he got to the Bullpen all three of them were staring at them. He gave a tiny nod which they all caught, and Tony was about to start asking about it when Tim also shook his head slightly, signaling _not here._ They understood that as well.

Two seconds later, before he had even gotten all the way to his desk, Gibbs' phone rang.

And they all know how this works, before Gibbs even has the phone put down they're snagging their go bags, saving and closing computer work, stashing paperwork, and by the time Gibbs had the phone hung up they were ready to go.

"Gear up." It's a formality now. It's probably been years since Gibbs has had to say the words.

But like a mantra, or a benediction, those words start a case. They mark the team swinging into action. And today they mark something else, the beginning of the end of Team Gibbs.


	176. You're A Dad

"Did you get the results?" Tim asked Jimmy on Tuesday at lunch.

Tim knows the answer is yes. He can see it by the way Jimmy hasn't checked his cell, and the fact that he looks a lot more relaxed. Not necessarily happier, but more at peace, so the results on the genetic testing for the Trisomy 13 gene must have come back.

"Neither of us." He stabs a bite of his chicken breast. "It was just bad damn luck. If we want to do IVF and have the embryos screened ahead of time, we can, but since neither of us are carriers the chance of it happening again isn't any higher than it was the first time."

"So…"

Jimmy shakes his head. "No. We're not going to do that."

"Just gonna close your eyes and jump off the cliff again?"

"Hoping and praying for a soft landing the entire way down? Yeah."

"You sure…" Tim's not sure how to say this delicately, so he goes for blunt as hell, "if it's a money thing… I mean, I know our insurance won't cover that… Abby and I could help." He and Abby talked about, so he knows she's okay with it. It's not the sort of thing he'd just whip out on a whim.

Jimmy just blinks at him. "Uh… wow! That's just… Do you have any idea what that sort of thing costs?"

"Yeah. Which is why I brought it up."

Jimmy's looking at him in confusion. "How would you even know that?"

"When something scary happens to me or anyone I love I research the hell out of it."

"Oh."

"So… ummm… yeah…"

"It's not a money thing. It's a… Neither of us wants to make babies by me jerking off into a cup while pumping her full of hormones to bolster egg production and then suck them out, mix in a pitri dish, let them grow a little, test them, and then put them back in. I mean…" He pokes at his food some more, gathering his thoughts. "It's supposed to feel good. It's supposed to be about joy and love and ecstasy… Making them is the fun part…" Jimmy shakes his head dismissively at that. "Making them is _a_ fun part. Making them is supposed to feel as good as having them, and since it won't really change things, we're not willing to give that up, let alone go broke doing it."

Tim nods. He's not entirely certain how to reply to that. He gets what Jimmy is saying, and completely agrees with it, but "Good luck" seems flip and hollow, "I hope it works out" seems lame, but he does want to say something.

Finally he comes up with, "I can't wait to meet Molly's little brother or sister."

"You and me both."

"You going to start trying again right away?"

"Oh yeah. Tossed the condoms out last night. With any luck it'll be a really exciting Christmas at our house this year."

"I really hope so."

"Me, too." Jimmy took another bite of his grilled chicken salad. "Abby said you had news, too."

"Yeah. Don't want this getting around work, though." Which was probably half of why Abby decided he and Jimmy needed to have lunch out today and set it up. "When Jenner in Cybercrime gives his notice, I'll take his place."

Jimmy smiles at that. "Department head by forty, who knew you were so ambitious?"

"Yeah. Well, assuming Jenner doesn't decide to stick around forever. Scuttlebutt has it he's been job hunting, though."

"You don't exactly look ecstatic."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm happy, but… the badge and the gun and running down bad guys… That's a really big part of who I am. I'm a cop."

Jimmy nods, getting that. "You're a dad."

"Yeah, and husband, and that comes first, and this is necessary to put that first. I can track cybercrime from home. I can sort financials, and hunt down the bad guys with my computer while Ke—McSciuto—"

"Ke—McSciuto?"

"That family name we haven't been telling anyone about."

"Yeah, Tim, I hate to break this to you, but all of your friends are cops, and even if they weren't, they aren't idiots. Absolutely no one hasn't figured out your mystery 'family name' is Kelly."

Tim sighs a little, rolls his eyes a little, and takes a bite of his flounder. "We're still going to wait to see if she's actually a girl, and then ask Jethro to make sure it's cool with him."

Jimmy nod and smiles. "You know, for a guy who'll wear a skirt and eyeliner to Shabbos, you're shockingly conservative about some things."

"I only did the eyeliner once." Which is true. Penny was at last Friday's Shabbos and… he's fairly sure it was fall out from rethinking everything that happened with his Dad, but he went all out on the Goth version of himself. Penny just looked at him when he and Abby came in, smiled, kissed his cheek, and asked what brand of eyeliner he liked, listened to his answer, and then acted like him in makeup was no big deal at all.

That had actually felt insanely good.

"I know."

"Just wanted to freak Tony out and let Penny see what it looked like."

"And you did a fine job of both of them. Last I heard, he was muttering about instituting a dress code, and had told me that if you try to wear makeup to his wedding that I'm to wrestle you to the ground and scrub it off."

Tim laughed at that. "I hadn't been planning on it… Anyway… McSciuto can be sleeping in her crib, and I can be hacking away in my office. I can be home at six every night. Sure, I might be chained to my computer and cell once I get there, and I might end up with three other Cybercrime Agents in my living room, but unlike Abby, my job can come home."

"Yep. You're a dad."

"Yeah. And I want to do it right. But… it still feels weird."

"Feels like you're changing. Like you don't quite know who you are?"

"Yeah."

"Welcome to the club, Tim. Give it a few months, once she's on the outside, you'll get settled again."

"I hope so."


	177. I, Anthony

_I, Anthony, take you, Ziva, to be my lawfully wedded wife._

Tim looked at the one line of text in Tony's handwriting on a pad of legal paper, and then looked back up at Tony. At his wedding Tony had talked about the two of them working on his vows. And now, with Tony's wedding not quite three weeks away, they were getting to it.

Though as Tim remembers it, he'd specified that Tony should have a rough draft that they'd work with together, because he was not going to ghost write Tony's vows.

"One line?" He's glaring a little at Tony. Not really angry, but a little frustrated. "The idea was you'd have a rough draft, and we'd work from there."

"It's really rough."

"It's non-existent. This is the part the Rabbi will say for you, and you'll just repeat back!"

"Actually no. The vows are in Hebrew. But… I wanted to write something for her. Something personalized. They don't have to be vows but…"

Oh. So not vows at all. Something different. Something Tony's never done before and probably feels completely lost dealing with. "Are you saying you want help writing a love poem?"

"A vowish love poems."

"Wow!" Tim's got an expression of wonder on his face, possibly with a tinge of teasing condescension as well.

Tony catches all the layers of that look and says, "Stuff it. Since no one in her immediate family is still alive, a 'traditional' wedding is important to Ziva, and she'd never say it, but I can see it, it's that last thread of home and family for her. So I'm fine with doing the traditional Hebrew vows, but… I want to give her something from me, as well. And I don't want to sound like an idiot doing it. So, McPoet, I am asking you for help."

Tim smiles; he understands that completely.

"Hey, can I come in, or is this a guy only party?" Abby asks, sticking her head into Tim's office.

"Please come in," Tony replies. He's sitting on Tim's one desk chair, and Tim is in the other one, so she settles onto Tim's lap. And Tony watches as, apparently, without him even noticing, Tim's hand comes to rest on her belly, while he kisses her neck.

"Good nap?"

"Yeah. I just hate being tired all the time." She turns to Tony. "It's better than it was, but I still need eight to ten hours of sleep a night, and I've never needed that much sleep. It's insane."

"Your body is working hard," Tim says, fondly stroking her tummy.

"And making me sleep hard, too." She looks at the piece of paper in front of Tim and Tony. "So, working on vows?"

"Sort of," Tony answers and then explains what they're doing.

"You want to call Jimmy?" Abby asks.

Both Tim and Tony say "No" in exactly the same tone of voice at exactly the same time.

Abby looks puzzled by this.

"Look, I love Jimmy, but he's terrible at this stuff," Tim says.

Tony's nodding. "The man had his testicles surgically removed when he was writing his vows. 'And each day I will shower you in a thousand butterfly kisses and thank the Lord you were born.' No!"

"Breena loved it! And it was so sweet."

"And if I was getting ready to marry Breena, Jimmy'd be the first guy I'd call for vow help. But, I do not want Ziva bursting into hysterical laughter when she reads this."

Abby takes the pen and crosses out Tony's name. "She doesn't call you Anthony. Only Ducky does. Tony's more personal."

"Okay, see, we're getting somewhere. Is that why you two did Tim and Abby for your vows instead of Timothy and Abigail?"

Tony looks up from where Abby scratched out his name when he notices that neither of them have said anything. He sees the smile on Abby's face is wicked glee, and Tim's looking pretty smug, as well.

Finally Tim says, "Remember the last ropes and things conversations, when you asked me what other help you might want?"

Tony's nodding, looking really disturbed, but he says, "Yes."

"Why you'll never hear me call her Abigail or her calling me Timothy is part of the lesson that comes after our last conversation."

"So you're saying I really don't want to know?"

Abby's grinning very happily right now. "You don't want to know about safewords? So much fun and so many cool—"

Tony closes his eyes and cuts in, "No, I don't want to know that you and McGee have or need them."

Abby shrugs. "I didn't know you were so vanilla."

"When it comes to mental images of McGee naked, I'm whatever makes vanilla look dangerous and kinky. So, can we talk vows, now?"

"Sure. Here." Tim hands Tony the pen, and pushes the pad of paper back to him. "We're going to get something to drink. You're going to spend the next ten minutes writing anything and everything that's comes to mind when you think of being married to Ziva. It doesn't have to make sense. It doesn't have to be vows. Just turn your internal filter off, and put anything that comes to mind on that piece of paper."

* * *

Ten minutes later Tim walked back in and saw Tony sitting in front of what looked like a much more filled in page. Unfortunately, as he got a few steps closer he saw that much more filled in was a collection of little interlocking squares and triangles.

"Do you really want to do this?" Tim asks.

"Where'd Abby go?" Tony replies with, not answering.

"Bowling practice with the Nuns. She'll be back in two hours."

"Oh."

"She also thinks you'll have an easier time of this without her hovering over your shoulder."

"Maybe."

"So, really, either you have no clue what being married is about, or this isn't a good fit for you. What's going on?"

"Look, I know I can be smooth and sweet talk this. But I don't want it to be a line. I don't want it to be… that exterior veneer of 'DiNozzo.' And every time I start to come up with something, it's all smooth."

Tim wrote down:

_With you, for you, I will always be real. _

_I will not hide my mind or heart._

"Oh, that's good. I like that."

"Good, then translate that into however you'd say that to her."

"It sounds more earnest in your voice."

"And when Ziva comes to her senses and decides to marry me, that'll matter. This might be my wedding present to you, but it's not my wedding present to her, so it better sound like you by the time this is done."

_You make me want to be a better man._ Tony wrote that under the first two lines, and Tim scratched it out.

"What?"

"Movie quote. Don't use someone else's words, find your own." But Tim stopped on that idea. "Actually… you love movies. You love her. Come on." He hops up and drags Tony in the chair to his computer. Two seconds later he's googled Blank Books, and he's got pages of empty books up on the screen.

"Find a beautiful one. Get a good pen. And write them all down. Fill the book with the quotes that now mean something to you because she's in your life. She loves books, so write her a book. You love movies, so fill it with movies. It doesn't have to be your own words; it has to be your own feelings, and if someone else has the words, use theirs."

Tony grins, wide smile stretching across his face.

"That I can do."


	178. Gear Up

"McGee, DiNozzo, gear up. Dead Marine out of Chapel Hill," Gibbs says as he puts his phone down.

"Gibbs?" Ziva asks, perfect inflection of _why aren't you bringing me along_ in her voice.

"Gonna be at least overnight, and I need someone here to keep an eye on things."

Tim glances over and sees Tony grabbing his go bag looking mildly pouty. He's been talking all day and all yesterday about how Ohio State is playing tonight and he can't wait to see it. Stuck in a crappy motel room dealing with a murder is not the way he wants to see that game.

When it hits him that Ziva's not coming, mildly pouty switched to downright unhappy.

"Boss," Tim says, hoping he sounds convincingly whiny. Ziva had gotten her part right, he's got to do his.

"One night alone won't kill her, Tim. Ziva's here, and so is Palmer. She'll be fine."

"But…"

"Head down, say goodbye, and we'll meet you at the van."

He glares a little at Gibbs before grabbing his go bag and heading down to the lab.

Abby sees him and bursts into a huge grin. "Does Tony have any idea?"

"None." The smile that's been trying to break out since Gibbs' phone rang (Palmer calling to let him know he was on the road.) spreads across his face. "We pulled it off perfectly. Utterly clueless. He's silently pouting about missing the game and sleeping alone." He steps in close and kisses her. "Are you going to be okay on your own?"

"Are you kidding? Ziva, Breena, and I have a fabulous night planned. It's going to be an absolute blast. There's a new gay club out on 10th and we are going to dance until our feet won't hold us up anymore. You guys go, have fun. See you tomorrow."

He kisses her again, slow and deep. "Tomorrow."

* * *

They were driving past UNC's stadium. Tony eyeing it longingly as Gibbs drove. "This is so wrong. I'm supposed to be at home, with Ziva, watching this game in high def on a sixty inch screen. Cold beer in one hand, Ohio State t-shirt on, cheering my guys to victory. Of all the bad times to get murdered. Where is this guy supposed to be?"

"Tony, check your go bag."

"McGee?" He stopped gazing at the stadium and flashed Tim his annoyed and confused look.

"Just do it."

Tony did, and his eyebrows drew together. He always keeps a change of clothing in there, they all do, that's the point of a go bag, but his has… "My Ohio State shirt?"

"See an envelope in there?" Tim asks as Gibbs pulls into the UNC stadium parking lot.

Tony dug around for a minute longer, and Tim started to get a little nervous, getting everything packed was Ziva's job, and he didn't get a chance to double check and make sure everything was in there the way it was supposed to be.

But Tony came up with it after a minute and looked inside.

For another minute, as Gibbs parked, Tony just stared at the tickets, eyes wide and disbelieving. Finally he looked up at them and said, "Four courtside seats?"

"Jimmy's waiting for us at the gate." Tim smirked at him. "Still think you don't want Jimmy or I planning your bachelor party?"

Tony looked back down at the tickets in his hand. When Ohio State made it to the final eight and got slotted into the UNC stadium, he had tried to get tickets, and they were completely sold out. "How did you get tickets to this?"

"Remember, I've got that cousin, and he knew a guy, and… I don't pay attention to basketball, but Jimmy noticed Ohio State made March Madness this year, so we put this plan into action."

Tony turned to Gibbs. "You knew?"

His expression said, _of course._ "You didn't think they'd take you out to a strip club and buy you lap dances, did you?"

"Well, no. That's why I didn't want them planning this."

"You'd rather be watching strippers?" Tim asked. He'd been hoping Tony'd like this.

That jerked Tony out of his shock. "No. I mean, this is beyond awesome." And Tim can see that's genuine. He just hadn't been expecting anything even remotely like this and it was taking him a minute to get his head out of pouting mode into celebrate mode. "I just… Jimmy came up with this?"

"Yeah, so let's get him so you can say thanks, and then watch this thing."

"McGee, do you even know enough about basketball to follow a game?" And that sounded a whole lot more like normal Tony.

"It's soccer with hoops. I'll do okay."

"Soccer with hoops?" Tony looked appalled and launched into a detailed exposition on the finer arts of basketball while stripping out of his work clothing into his fan clothing. He had half-noticed that Tim and Gibbs had both been a little more casual than usual for work clothing today, but not so much so that it was worth mentioning.

They found Jimmy a few minutes later, looking fairly relaxed, tucking his cell back into his pocket.

Tony smiled at him and said, "Tim tells me this was your idea?"

"Breena's really."

Tony nodded in appreciation of Breena. "You have the coolest wife ever."

"I agree."

"McGeek thinks this is soccer with hoops. Do you need a primer on basketball, too?"

Jimmy looked at Tim like he's a twit. "Soccer with hoops?"

Tim shrugged. "Eleven guys, start in the middle, run to the end, get the ball into the target, don't tackle each other, don't pick the ball up and carry it. Soccer with hoops."

Jimmy sighed and shook his head. "Lord, someone messed up your education. I played in junior high. I wasn't good or anything, but I at least know it's not soccer."

"Good." Tony said with a very wide and happy grin.

* * *

By conservative estimate there are nineteen million people in that stadium and they are all rabid UNC supporters. Home team at the home stadium and they are going bonkers.

To say they've gotten a few dirty looks, and some choice verbiage as they head to their seats due to Tony's shirt is an understatement.

But they are courtside, and luck had it they are on the Ohio State side of the court.

They get settled, comfortable, beer and dogs in hand, and are watching the pre-game show when the Ohio State Coach turns around to talk to one of the players and notices them.

"Tony DiNozzo?"

"Mark Ratham?"

Mark came forward and wrapped him in a back slapping hug. "What are you doing here, man?"

"Watching the game." He pulled back from Mark holding his shoulders. "Are you coaching?"

"Yeah, Bob Gilman got hit by a car last night, so I'm up."

Tony looked worried at that. Anything this close to a big game can mess with the cohesion of the team and that's a very bad thing. "Is the team going to be okay?"

"Oh, yeah, he'll be fine, so they'll be fine, but they want to keep him under 'observation' for twenty four hours. Those bastards at the hospital are UNC supporters."

"Oh." Tony nodded along. "Guy driving a UNC supporter, too?"

"Can't prove it, but I wouldn't doubt it. Look, game's starting in five, but if you want me to introduce you at half time to the team, I'd be happy to."

"That'd be great."

Tim, Jimmy, and Gibbs are all giving him the _fill us in _look.

"Mark was my roommate sophomore and junior year. Seniors got singles in our house, so we split up then, but… yeah… a lot of my better college memories involve him. Wow. Haven't seen him in... twenty years."

"Spring break in Mexico?" Tim asked.

"Yeah. He got married and stopped coming. He was assistant coach for… I don't remember, some little school in corn country. Looks like he's moved up in the world."

* * *

Tim's, of course, heard all about Tony's college exploits. Everyone has. He'll talk your ear off about them. Though Tim has noticed the focus on what Tony did in college has shifted over the years. When he first started NCIS, he heard a lot more about partying and girls, and these days he hears a lot more about basketball.

Actually, these days, he hasn't heard a whole lot about Ohio State, period. It's probably been four years since Tony's brought it up, though he'll mention it when they're talking college type stuff.

Still, there's hearing the stories, which, Tim had figured were about two-thirds bullshit, and then there's seeing the guys on the team stare at Tony like he's some sort of mythological figure stepping out of the book and shaking their hands.

Twenty college kids are looking at Tony like he's some sort of God. One they pray to regularly.

And Tony is basking in it.

* * *

"Haven't seen you in forever, what are you doing these days?" Mark asks after introducing Tony around.

"Believe it or not, I'm a cop."

"You're a what?" Mark looks like he'd more readily believe Tony was a woman than a cop.

"Work for the Navy. I investigate crimes involving Navy or Marine personnel."

"You became a cop? Tony 'let me see how many laws I can break per night' DiNozzo became a cop?" Mark's laughing like this is the best joke ever.

"Not that many!" Tony's looking a little embarrassed.

"Dude, you didn't turn twenty-one until the end of your junior year, and good two-thirds of those girls were under eighteen." A little embarrassed had morphed to distinctly uncomfortable. Gibbs' eyes narrowed a little, and Jimmy crossed his arms. And Tim is suddenly understanding that there is a very big difference between having a daughter, and possibly having a daughter. Because while he definitely considers fooling around with underage girls a problem, he doesn't appear to be having the same sort of visceral reaction Gibbs and Jimmy are.

"So who are your buddies?" Mark asks, finally noticing there are three other guys here and two of them don't look even remotely happy about him.

Tim grinned. But there's no warmth there, and anyone who knows him knows that's not a friendly gesture, and he's kind of hoping Mark takes the hint to pull back after this. "Two more cops," he gestured at himself and Gibbs. "A medical examiner." Pointed to Jimmy. "And, oh" here he pointed back at Gibbs. "His father-in-law."

"You're married? You gonna tell me you've got the house, the dog, and the white picket fence next?"

"Not that far along yet, it's my bachelor party. Last I heard you were married, too."

"Married didn't work out. At all. And, not that we aren't happy to see you here, but this is a lame-ass bachelor party. Hell, bachelor party is the best part of getting married. A bachelor party is the reason to get married! I was still drunk at the reception from mine… and the girls!"

Tim was deciding that Mark was the kind of guy he hated in high school, and fortunately didn't see much of in college. Tim can also see Tony's trying to figure out how to get out of this. There's only a few minutes more of halftime, and then they can get back to watching the game, hopefully without this clod hanging onto them.

"I'm having a great time."

"Oh." There's pity on Mark's face, and he's got a very clear expression of _you're so whipped. _"You want to come with us after the game? Turn this into a real bachelor party? There'll be pretty little girls begging for attention and booze galore. And I'm sure the boys would love to see you in action."

"Not my thing anymore." Tony flashed his patented DiNozzo charm smile and had stepped back from Mark.

Mark said, "Come on man, your pic, the one with the six girls and the beer bong, is still up on the wall of fame at our frat house." Mark turned toward the Tim, Jimmy, and Gibbs. "This here is the only man who made the wall of fame every single semester he was at Ohio State. There's still a little shrine to him at the Delta Beta Chi frat house. So, come on, relive the glory days with the team? You're a hero, well, a myth, to these kids."

Tony sighed. "Mark, you see these three guys? They love my fiancée, almost as much as I do, and if I fool around on her, they will kill me and lose my body somewhere between here and home."

Tim and Jimmy are nodding and Gibbs is just coolly staring at Mark, very clearly signaling _get the hell out of here before I arrest you for statutory rape, and probably shoot you for resisting arrest along the way._

"Two-thirds of them under eighteen?" Gibbs asks Tony quietly, as Mark backs away from that stare and returns to his team.

The look on Gibbs' face is terrifying, so Tony answers honestly, "Yeah." Jimmy looks ready to hit Tony, too. "It was the '80s. We lived in a party frat. Girls are what make the party fun. ID checks were shaky at best back then and we were famous for never, ever doing it. As long as you were cute enough that the guy at the door liked you, you got in. And Bob never saw a girl he didn't like. And we were all drunk, too. And when you're nineteen the idea that fourteen or fifteen is too young is silly because you still remember being fourteen and all you wanted to do then was get laid, and she's there, rubbing up against you, kissing you, tight and tiny little skirt, low cut top, clearly she knew what she was doing, so why not make some sweet young thing's night?"

Gibbs looks at Jimmy and Tim, letting them know they were about to see a practical application of instilling _the fear of Dad_ in someone, and then says, "You're gonna have girls. And so are they. Daughters and nieces, and they will be the light of your life, and you will love them more than you can even imagine, and assholes like the guy you used to be are going to be chasing after them. I hope you get an ulcer from worrying about them for each and every single one of those little girls you fucked!"

Tim's heard Gibbs swear before, he's fairly sure Tony has, too, but not sure about Jimmy. But, it's one thing to say fuck and mean _I am irritated by the current set of circumstances and want something to express that_ and a whole other thing to say it and mean _I am thirty seconds away from smacking the living hell out of you and the only reason I don't is because I know the man you are is not the man you use to be but so help me God if it ever looks like you are going to revert back to that guy I will kick your ass so hard you will limp for the rest of your very short life. _

And Tim is deeply, sincerely, fervently glad that he's never had Gibbs that pissed at him, and that he's never done anything that will ever get Gibbs that pissed at him.

Tony looks really disturbed and tries to laugh that off. "Come on, you were a Marine, you must have—"

"Stayed a virgin until my wedding night, when we were both twenty? Yeah, I did. And those two weren't fucking any little girls, either."

Tony's a little irked by that. He's fairly certain Tim or Jimmy would have happily slept with a fifteen or sixteen-year-old when they were nineteen if there had been one available. "Those two weren't fucking anyone period."

"Hey! I had a steady girlfriend junior and senior year of high school, and two more in college," Jimmy says. Tim cringes at that, now really wasn't a good time for Jimmy to forget his mental filter.

"Your high school sweetie, was she twelve?" Gibbs asks, eyes on Tony, very intense expression of pissed off not wavering. He's not looking at Jimmy at all.

"What? No!" Jimmy's utterly horrified by that idea.

"You love her?"

"Yeah."

"You go to her house, look her dad in the eye when you talked to him, and treat his daughter with respect?"

"Yes."

He glanced at Jimmy for a second, face relaxing a little. "Then we don't have a problem." Then he turned back to Tony, eyes hot and angry. "You do any of those things, Tony?"

"No."

"You get their names?"

"Some of them."

Gibbs looks disgusted as he says, "You at least make sure they had a good time?"

"Too drunk and too full of myself to ever think they might need more than me just being there."

Gibbs eyes narrowed even further, and Tim can see the muscles in his jaws clenching. "You treated them like blow up dolls and jerked off in them, probably hurt at least a few of them doing it."

Tony nods.

"Get 'em sick?"

"Some of them gave me gonorrhea, crabs, and the clap, and, yeah, I passed them on as well."

"Get 'em pregnant?"

"No one ever showed up with a kid that looked like me, but I know for a fact that I'm not shooting blanks, so I can't believe that I didn't get at least a few of them pregnant."

"Did they say yes?" Gibbs' voice is very low, very dangerous when he says this, and Tim is really hoping that if the truth to that is no, that Tony has the good sense to lie and lie more convincingly than he's ever lied before.

"None of them was ever unconscious or said no. But a lot of them were very drunk."

"Barely walk on their own, don't remember anything in the morning drunk?"

"Yeah."

"So yes, that's a problem."

"I know." And Tim thinks he really does, thinks that's why there haven't been any tales of the DiNozzo Party Machine in years.

"Good! And if need be, we are beating the idea that this is a problem with a two by four into any sons you, or they, may have."

"Yes, sir."

Gibbs looked satisfied that he had properly instilled _the fear of Dad_ into Tony and nodded. Then sat down in his seat, and looked in the direction of the now wrapping up half-time show.

* * *

A/N: Okay, I'm not trying to hate on Tony, but... well... okay, on one level I do want to deal with the massive character changes we've seen in Tony over eleven (and in Shards world 14) years. And I want to spend a little time on what sort of guy Tony likely was in college and as a cop. It gets glossed over now, but Tony was still going to Spring Break in Mexico at the age of 35. That's the land of the drunk, borderline unconscious, underage girl looking for a good time, and he happily took advantage of it. And I guess I wanted to make clear that to honorable men, that's just not cool. And it took a while, but Tony finally got there and became one. I have a feeling the way he treated Kate that first year (like walking into the bathroom while she was in the shower) is likely to come back to haunt him, too. He was the classic, sexually aggressive-harasser who covered it with a lot of charm and good looks, and Kate put up with a lot of bullshit from him that these days would get him fired so fast time would move backward.

Oh well, light, fluffy fun sexy bachelor party stuff tomorrow.


	179. The Dive

Two quarters of a game to cool down, get their minds off of Tony's past, and relax back into the idea that this is supposed to be fun, and that there's nothing he can do about the man he used to be was a good thing.

And it was a good game. The Buckeyes were evenly matched with UNC, so the game stayed close the whole time, keeping the four of them interested.

And when Ohio State won it with a three pointer that whispered through the hoop less than half a second before the buzzer, they were all shouting (Tony jumping up and down) with excitement.

Late night drinks and barbecue went very well with basketball.

Honestly, it looked like a dive. It's the dive-y-ist dive Tim's ever seen. A ramshackle, beat the hell up, the only reason the health inspector hasn't closed it down is they spend more money bribing him then they do on décor shack of a place. He's honestly nervous about bringing them here, let alone eating anything.

But it also came up over and over again on the list of barbecue joints you absolutely had to go to if you were anywhere near Chapel Hill.

And it smells like absolute heaven.

And they are men, engaging in a sacred male ritual, and sacred male rituals need meat that has been cooked over fire.

And since Tony is convinced that barbecue is hot dogs and burgers on the grill, Tim is considering it his duty, as both his friend and best man, to make sure he gets introduced to the joy that is spice rubbed slow cooked pork.

So it's late. They're in a dive. But the beer is cold and delicious, and the pulled pork and ribs are come-in-your-pants good. Tim loves food. He really does. But this is the first time he's ever honestly considered food to be almost orgasmic experience, and he's also very glad that this place is eight hours from home, because otherwise he'd be 210 again in about six weeks.

Tony is sucking the rib bones it's so good. (He'd tried to follow the rules. He started with the chicken, and that was awfully tasty, but he saw Gibbs' ribs and decided that God would probably forgive him some decadence for his bachelor party. Especially since there were no strippers involved.)

Gibbs, who usually isn't a big eater, has ordered seconds and thirds.

And it's not that Jimmy can't eat sugar, it's just that he has to adjust his insulin levels to do so, and thus usually avoids sugar so he doesn't have to inject himself. But he was happily gnawing away, telling them that this was totally worth the shot.

And, as in the past, when a certain amount of beer has been consumed and the girls aren't around, the conversation turned to sex.

Tony's looking at Gibbs and finally says, "So… not until your wedding? Really? Just, twenty years, seems like a really long time."

Gibbs just shrugs. He was eighteen when he met Shannon, and while it's true he was ambivalent on the yes sex or no sex before marriage issue (He's Christian and his church had been pretty clear about the only with your wife thing, but he was also eighteen, so having sex was something he was deeply interested in.) Shannon wasn't, and once he met her, the idea of doing it with someone else just made him sad.

They wait another beat, but Gibbs doesn't say anything, just eats more of his rib.

Then Jimmy elbows Tony and says, "You can't miss what you've never had. You want to talk about a long time, Breena made me wait until we got married. So, at thirty-two, long after I had thought I was done with terminal blue balls, I was back to being bestest friends with my right hand. That was hard."

"I think you mean you were hard," Tim says.

"That, too." Jimmy smirks and takes a drink. "Anyway, waiting until you get married when you get married before you're even old enough to drink, please."

"Drinking age was eighteen then."

Jimmy flashes Gibbs a _you're missing the point_ look. "Great. Still, no sex to lots of sex, easy. Somewhat regular sex, start dating the hottest, most desirable woman on earth, and knowing _exactly_ how good it's going to be and what you're missing, and because she's evil, making out with her on a regular basis but not having sex, that's har—difficult."

Tony's laughing at that. "I didn't think she was that religious."

"She was deeply religious, but that wasn't why she made us wait. Our first date she said to me, 'I've known a lot of guys over the years, and one thing I've noticed about all of you is that you're pretty possessive and you like to know that when something is yours it's really yours.' So I nodded at that, because, well, yeah, that's true. So she says, 'Look, I love guys. I love the way they feel and smell and look and touch me. I love kissing and making out and rubbing up against them, but I'm a virgin. I'm not having sex with any guy until I get married. That's my wedding present to my future husband. He'll know, absolutely, that I'm his and only his. And when that ring's on my finger I'm going to absolutely rock his world.' And she just smiled at me, and wrapped her lips around the straw in her drink, took a sip and finished up with, 'If that's not something you respect, well, this was fun. If it's something you do, then I'd like to see you again.'"

"What did you say to that?" Tim asks, smiling.

"You mean once some of the blood got back to my brain and I could form words?"

Tim nods.

"Marry me."

All three of them laugh at that.

"Then she said, 'How about we go on a second date first?' And we did, and it was the longest most sexually frustrated two years of my life. And then because God hates me, Dearing blew up NCIS on my wedding day, and since I'm a decent guy who wanted her to have a good time, too, we waited another week, until I was able to crawl out from under the mile-high stack of paperwork I had to deal with, get enough sleep so I could keep going for more than two minutes, and take the time to do it right."

"It was worth it," Gibbs says, sharing a look with Jimmy, one that understands what waiting for something you desire above everything else and then finally getting it is like.

"Oh yeah." He grins and shakes his head in wonder. "And, yeah, there's a real kick to knowing she's only been with me. It's stupid, because we aren't supposed to feel that way, but… I do. I'm the only guy who's gotten to see her naked. Only one who's ever enjoyed her body. And she was dead right, that was one hell of a wedding present."

Gibbs nods at that, too, agreeing. "It was expected when we got married. You'd be her one and only. And yeah, maybe you fooled around before you got married, but she didn't, or if she did, it was with you. And you didn't feel bad about liking it. Didn't feel like there was something wrong with you if you got a kick out of letting her learn what to do with a guy on you. Didn't feel like it was wrong to say she was yours. Bunch of guys were jerks about it, and that wrecked it for the rest of us, but we all feel it. Hell," he tips his head at Tim and Tony, "those two feel it, even if it's not quite the same."

Tim nods along with that, swallowing his beer and putting the glass down. "Certainly got a kick out of everything I've done with her that no other guy has."

"What have you done with Abby that no other guy has?" Tony asks, rib paused midway to his mouth. Sure, he knows that Tim's not vanilla about sex, but he's also fairly sure that if Tim's ever imagined it, then Abby's done it.

Tim smiles wide and fairly dirty. "Got her pregnant among other things, and 'other things' is all you get to know about that."

Tony, Jimmy, and Gibbs laugh.

"And there's definitely a thrill to everything I've done with her and no one else. It works both ways."

Gibbs smiles at that, eyes the waitress, looking like he might be thinking about fourths, but decides against it. "Yeah, it does."

Jimmy's phone buzzes. He reaches for it, taps the screen, and smiles. "Speaking of the girls who make our lives worthwhile. Breena just sent me these." He turned the screen so they could all see. The first shot was Abby and Ziva, looking like they were taking a break from dancing. The next was Breena with Ziva, putting a little sparkly tiara on her head. There was a dim, grainy shot of all three of them dancing together.

Tim's looking at them, and says, "So it looks like a good time and minor hearing damage has been had by all."

"Yes."

"So, they home, or just taking a break?" Tony asks.

Jimmy flashes a quick text to Breena and thirty seconds later says, "Home. The pregnant matron of honor needed some sleep."

Tim checks his watch; it's 12:48. "She's going to be pissed about that. She hates how tired she is these days."

Tony notices that their waitress is sort of glaring at them. "I think we're overstaying our welcome."

So they settled up and headed to their hotel.


	180. Bedtime

"How are you doing?" Tim asked Jimmy after they got back to their room and began to get ready for bed.

"You mean besides the fact that I'm not supposed to be here tonight because my wife is supposed to be eight months pregnant."

"No. I mean about that."

Jimmy shrugged, pulling his shirt over his head. "I've only texted home three times."

"I noticed. You're getting better on that."

"Yeah. According to Gibbs I can't let the fear own me. So, I'm trying."

"If anyone would know, it's him."

"He always looks fearless."

"Easy to be fearless when you don't value your life."

"Really?"

"Not anymore, not for years. But back when we all started? Yeah."

Jimmy seemed to think about that as he headed to the bathroom. Five minutes later, he was back in a pair of flannel pajama pants that looked very similar to what Tim wore for hot yoga. That triggered the memory of the conversation they had post-hot yoga, so Tim asked, "If I wanted to try shaving it all off, what would you suggest?"

"Tim?"

He rolled his eyes a little, signaling that yes, this was a little silly, but he's curious and comfortable enough with Jimmy to ask about it. "We've got that long weekend after Tony's wedding, and we like to celebrate weddings, so, something special might be in order."

Jimmy laughed. "Why didn't you google it?"

A really wicked grin lit up Tim's face. "Oh, I did. On Ziva's computer. And I left a really obvious trail of breadcrumbs for her to follow. Next time she searches anything that starts with sh it'll pop up."

Jimmy laughed at that, too. "That's your elf porn revenge isn't it."

"Yep, it took a while to figure out the right thing, but I think that'll work really well." Tim looked deeply satisfied at that.

Jimmy shook his head and grinned. "He's going to wet his pants when she shows up with a smile and a razor."

Tim's got a really smug and pleased expression on his face. "That was the plan. So, tips?"

"Do it as close to having sex as you can, and leave at least an hour for it. You shave your face every day?"

"Nah. Every other. Don't really get stubbly until the second day."

"That's about where I am. 'Round about a day and a half I end up with a five o'clock shadow. So, maybe you'll have ten or twelve hours where it's not an issue, but it's really going to itch when it starts to grow back in."

"Got it."

"Cotton boxers or better yet, wear one of the kilts after. You've got pubic hair for a reason, and dealing with hot and sweaty is that reason, so keep yourself cool and dry."

"All right."

"Brand new razor, a good one, you want it sharp as sharp can be. Good shaving cream or gel or whatever, not soap." Tim's nodding at that. He doesn't like shaving his face with soap, and can't imagine his privates would be any less sensitive. "Trim first, as close as you can get. And for the love of God, pay attention to the go-with-the-grain thing. I know none of us do it when we shave our faces, but really, do it. First pass with the grain, second across it, no third pass. Pluck anything that's left after two passes, because your skin doesn't want a razor going over it more than that. Wash off, pat dry, spray with a little Neosporin, you're good to go."

"Why am I spraying with Neosporin?"

"Because no matter how good at it you are, you've probably got a few hundred tiny, microscopic cuts, and maybe a few you can see as well, and that's one area you don't want an infection, and between the sting and how it tastes, you don't want to be splashing aftershave on it."

"Good points."

Jimmy stretched out on his bed, hands behind his head, still on top of the blankets. "You going to tell her about it or just surprise her?"

"Not sure yet. Probably a surprise."

Jimmy nodded, looked like he's thinking about saying something, and finally decided to say it. "You tell her about it, and she might offer to do it for you. And… well, that's fun and easier, 'cause, she can see what she's doing better than you can."

"Uh huh…"

"And… you know, she's a whole lot more used to shaving delicate places."

"True. So… you let Breena…"

He rolled onto his side to face Tim, who's sitting cross-legged on his bed, unpacking his go-bag. "Not the first time. But, as she pointed out to me, and I'm pointing out to you, she knew what she was doing, and was in a much better position to do it. I mean, are you good at figuring out how to do something by looking in a mirror? I'm not."

"Actually, yes, I am good at that."

"Okay then. Still, it's more fun if she does it."

"You really get off on danger, don't you?"

Jimmy just looked at Tim curiously.

"Look, I trust Abby with my life. Hell, I let her put eyeliner and mascara on me, she even does the waterline—"

"What's the waterline?"

"The little part the eyelashes grow out of, right next to your eye." Tim pointed to it as he said it. Jimmy winced at that idea, and Tim continued. "But I don't want her holding a razor to my balls."

"Meh." Jimmy was supremely unconcerned about that. "I'm way more likely to slice the hell out of myself than she is. So… do you do the whole makeup thing a lot?"

"Besides that Shabbos, a couple of times a year when we go to one of her clubs. Sometimes when we're playing. Call it ten times a year, max."

"Does it feel weird?"

Tim thought about that for a few seconds, not sure what Jimmy's asking. "How do you mean feel, like physical sensation or emotional?"

"Both, either?"

"First few times, yeah, it felt weird. I kept wanting to rub my eyes. But the first couple times I was in college playing live action Vampire, so by the time I met Abby I was sort of used to it."

"Live action Vampire? Like, you running around sucking people's blood?"

"In a nutshell. Though lots of Vampire politics and intrigue, as well."

Jimmy laughed. "You're the biggest nerd ever."

"Uh huh." Tim just nodded, dryly amused. "You're the one asking me about it."

"True enough. So, you're, what, nineteen, and running around in your vampire costume, complete with cape, fangs, white skin, red lipstick, and eyeliner?"

Tim had a pretty good idea of the kind of vampire Jimmy was thinking of. "You're watching way too much Sesame Street. I looked nothing like The Count. I was seventeen and eighteen, and I played a Brujah."

"That means literally nothing to me."

"Brujahs are anarchist vampires. They started out philosopher warriors and by the time the '90s had rolled around their big thing was destroying the system. Black trench coat, raggedy jeans, t-shirt, wallet on a chain, hair long, scraggly, sprayed black and electric blue, eyeliner, fake tats on face and neck, combat boots, overly fond of Nine Inch Nails. His name was Elijah, and I played the hell out of that character."

"Oh, I remember you guys. Our school had a building called the Campus Center, and it was a cafeteria, meeting space, classrooms, theater, and coffee shop, all in one building. But the middle of it was wide open with these huge staircases, and every Friday nights all the freaks came out and kept wandering around doing stuff in tons of black and makeup."

"Yeah, that would have been us."

"Then on Saturday they'd gear up with homemade nerf weapons, armor, and dart guns and play something that looked like capture the flag. And Sunday was live action chess."

"You had a really serious gamer community at your school, didn't you?"

"I think there was only something like thirty of them, but yeah, they were really gung ho about it. I'd be practicing with the rest of the Choir, and a few of them would come running through, brandishing their weapons, yelling something, and twenty seconds later, three more would follow."

"Yeah, that would have been me. And when the role required makeup, I wore it. And since I started doing it with other gamers, and we were already, as you so kindly put it, freaks, wearing it on didn't feel weird on any sort of emotional level. It was just part of the game, like putting on headgear for wrestling."

Jimmy nodded at that.

"Why are you asking?"

"Breena was really… enthusiastic... about the idea of me in makeup after seeing you wear it."

"Huh." Tim's eyebrows shot up. He supposed that shouldn't be a surprise, Breena does seem to like the more rock and roll look, or at least she's always approved of it when he plays with it.

"Yeah."

"And you didn't do it?"

"It's kind of weird."

Tim rolled his eyes. "Your dick's not going to fall off because you put on mascara."

"Yeah, I know. It's just…" Jimmy kind of looked like he's hoping Tim will cut in so he doesn't have to finish that sentence, but Tim just waited for him.

"Just…"

"Kind of girly."

Tim snorted at that. "Says the guy who shaves off his pubes."

"Guys do that!"

"Last I checked, I'm a guy. Your girl likes you in it, what's the deal? It's fun. She's happy. The sex is good. Who cares if you've got on eyeliner?"

"So, how do you do it and not look like a clown?"

"Are you asking me for makeup tips?"

"A: Yes. B: Nothing about this conversation is ever, ever repeated to Tony. C: You started this."

Tim nodded. Hell, this conversation likely wasn't getting mentioned to Abby, let alone anyone else. "Abby does mine. She's a whole lot better at it than I am. The only thing I do for myself is my nails." Decades of model building, followed by his different electrical/computer projects mean Tim actually has steadier hands than Abby. So, between that and the fact that she doesn't wear nail polish regularly, he does his own, and on the few occasions she wears it, hers.

"It's not much of a surprise if she does it, now is it?"

Tim laughed at that. "Youtube has videos on how to do everything. There have got to be makeup videos on there. Buy good stuff, because you don't want to end up having an allergic reaction."

"What's good stuff?"

"I like Urban Decay."

"You have a brand?"

"For eyeliner I do. It's soft, goes on nice, stays put forever, and unlike the stuff Abby likes, it doesn't bug my eyes. First time she did my eyes, we had to skip going out that night because both eyes swelled shut in like five minutes."

"Ew." Jimmy winced, and Tim nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. And it's not impossible that I like Urban Decay because, well, it's a punk brand, so a guy walks in in a kilt and grabs some black eyeliner and nail polish they don't look at me like I'm weird. And, sure this is dumb as hell, black is black is black, but I'm a lot more comfortable buying a color called Perversion, Zero, or Oil Slick, than something called Midnight Orchid or whatever other girly name the other companies come up with."

Jimmy laughs at that, then thinks about it, tries to imagine buying something like Sable Kiss or whatever, and says, "Good point."

"Anyway. Videos, then if you want to surprise her, get your own stuff, or swipe hers, and practice right before you get a shower. Wash off, and when you think you know what you're doing, let your inner rock star out."

Tim grabs his toiletries and jammies and heads to the bathroom. A few minutes later, he's brushing his teeth when a thought hits him, so he heads out of the bathroom. "You know—"

"Are you really having a conversation with me while you brush your teeth?" Jimmy was under the blankets, just staring at Tim, like he couldn't quite believe this was happening.

"That a problem?"

"We're not married."

"Oh sorry. I didn't realize that after talking sex and makeup while we're sharing a room and you're in your pajamas that brushing my teeth in front of you was too intimate. I've shared a room with Tony seventeen million times, and even he can take this. Gibbs'll walk in on you naked, without knocking, and just stand there, talking to you like it's no big deal."

He ducked back into the bathroom to finish up and came back out when Jimmy said, "Why would Gibbs walk into your room naked?"

"No. He'll walk in while you're naked."

"Okay, that makes more sense. So, what great revelation just hit you?"

Tim got into his bed. "Lipstick."

"Lipstick?"

"No matter how Gothed out I go, I don't wear it. I just… really didn't like the idea of it. It took Abby two years to get me into it."

"And you're bringing this up why?"

"Just, I get it. It took a minute, but I get it. That was my bridge too far. The thing that was too girly."

"But you did it?"

"Yeah. Couldn't get that tattoo on her neck without my lip print, and no way to get that without it."

"Eyeliner didn't bother you, but lipstick did?"

"Not saying it wasn't silly, but yeah."

"And am I correct in noticing you using the past tense?"

Tim looked a little sheepish. "I still don't love it. Won't look at myself in it, cause it has to look dumb as hell. I'm not pretty enough to pull off glam. But… she really does like it. And leaving lip prints on her is a lot of fun. And my dick didn't fall off. It was still perfectly fine and had an awfully good time when I was wearing it."

"Uh huh." Jimmy was quiet, and flipped off the light as Tim got settled in bed. Then he asked, "What color?"

"Black the first time, like the tattoo. Then she found this stuff online, Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics Lip Tars, they're basically lip paint, and you can mix them together to make lots of colors, and they come in a lot of colors, too. So she got like every color you can imagine: blue and green and purple and gold and silver and one weekend we tried them all out, and I covered her in lots of different colors, and she did me."

"That was fun?"

"Yeah. I never got hickies. Never understood why you might want to suck on her so hard you left a bruise. Pain, inflicting it or receiving it, just really doesn't do it for me."

"Says the guy with three tattoos."

"That's different."

"How?"

"I don't know; it just is. Anyway, looking back and seeing all those little marks, knowing I put them there, and that stuff stays on like, forever, if you don't wash it off, that was a kick. Like the tattoos, but not nearly as expensive, you don't need another person, and you can get places you don't want a tattoo gun going anywhere near. That was a lot of fun."

"Huh. So you're saying you had a two person rainbow party?"

"I guess. You ever wonder if stuff like that is real? Or just urban legends. I mean, the girls I knew in high school and junior high weren't doing stuff like that."

"Let's put it this way: when I was seventeen I would have given my right nut for it to be real. Now, with a year-old little girl, I'm hoping it's an urban legend."

Tim laughed a little at that. "You and Gibbs looked ready to kill Tony."

"I love Tony, but… There was just this sense of rage. And there's nothing he can do about it. And I know it was the '80s and the rules were different, but, yeah, I wanted to hit him, really hard. She's going to grow up and there'll be guys out there who'll be aggressive jerks, and it's scary."

Tim nodded.

"It was probably easier when Gibbs was a dad. You could just take a stand: No sex until you get married! Go put that caftan on and enjoy your education at St. Mary's All Girl School for Extremely Catholic Virgins!" Jimmy stopped and thought about that. "I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be Fornell. I see the way he watches Emily and how his blood pressure goes shooting up every time it looks like she's getting interested in a guy or sex. I want Molly to have boyfriends and to enjoy them. I just don't want her to get hurt. I don't want her to get sick. I really don't want to be a grandfather any time in the next two decades, and three would be even better. I want her to know about what her mother chose, and why it was a good thing, but I also want her to know about Abby and Ziva and… I want her to own her body, own her sexuality, and I'm so scared some asshole's gonna try and take it away from her or hurt her for making her own decisions."

Tim sighed. "There's nothing you can do about that, not now. But, the good thing is you probably don't have to worry about it for at least a decade. And by then, we'll have our own Fear of Dad razor sharp."

"I hope so. But we'll only be able to scare the ones we know about. We won't always be around."

"Nope. But unlike Fornell, and I'm going to guess a lot of the girls Tony was fooling around with, we are going to be there every day, every night, showing our girls by how we live how a man who loves a woman treats her. Our girls are going to know what respect looks like because we'll live it. And our girls aren't going to be acting out, craving Daddy's attention, because they'll have it."

He can hear a slight rustle from Jimmy's bed, and assumed that was him shrugging.

"And I'll wire them with GPS trackers so we can swoop in and save the day if need be."

That got a laugh out of Jimmy. "Good night, Tim."

"Night."


	181. It's A

Once again, they're sitting next to the ultrasound machine, waiting for the tech to show up and start taking pictures.

It's the third time, so it's starting to get a little routine, but there's also the buzz of excitement that comes with finding out if Kelly really is a girl.

"You know, we're gonna feel silly if Kelly's a boy," Tim says, holding Abby's hand, looking at the currently blanks screen.

"You might. I won't."

"Okay. What are we calling him if he's not a girl?" They've been so certain that Kelly's a girl they haven't even talked about boys names.

She thinks about that as they wait for the ultrasound tech. "Not Tony."

Yeah, he can get behind that. Maybe as a middle name, but not a first name. Tony McGee, no matter how much he loves DiNozzo just sounds bad. "Definitely not Tony."

"Sean?" Abby asks.

He thinks about that. "Sean McGee is _really_ Irish."

"Is that bad?" Abby's noticed that Tim doesn't identify as Irish. He's just American. But she's never dug deep enough to know if it's part of him not being his Dad, or if, like the Sciutos weren't Italian in any meaningful sense, the McGees weren't Irish.

"No. Just pointing it out. I kind of like it. Sean James…" He lets that roll around in his mind for a second, the image of a little boy with sandy blonde hair and green eyes clicking with that name.

"Sean James McGee sounds really good," Abby says, and he's thinking she's probably got a pretty similar image in her mind.

"Yeah."

Then the tech came in, and discussion of what Kelly might be called if there was indeed a penis stopped.

And once again they watched as different features revealed themselves. Heart first, thrumming away, strong and steady; veins and arteries doing the jobs they were built for. Liver, kidneys, lungs and brain all looked good. Arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers and toes were all accounted for.

And two minutes later, possible boys names became an entirely moot point as the tech says, "No testicles, that's a little girl."

* * *

Gibbs was staring at the ultrasound picture. They'd headed over to his place after work, wanting to show it to him first, and ask him a serious question. Sure, they'd been calling her Kelly when they were alone together, but now was the time to find out if they could keep that name.

For a few minutes, he just looked at the picture. Sure he's seen ultrasounds of babies and they all look pretty much the same, but this is his little girl, so that adds to it. Doesn't matter that he couldn't pick her out from a collection of other ultrasounds unless he could see the McGee on the upper left corner, it's his girl, and that's what matters.

Abby was sitting next to him on the sofa, leaning her head into his shoulder, (he has his arm around her) looking at the picture with him. Then she started the question. "She's a girl, and we were wondering... Well, Tim was wondering... I was going to just go ahead and do it... But he wanted to make sure it was okay..." Tim notices her eyes are tearing up, and she's putting more and more phrases between now and the actual question, so he squeezes her hand and takes over.

"We'd like to call her Kelly, but we also wanted to make sure it'd be okay with you."

Gibbs smiles, eyes warm, looking at the black and white image in front of him, fingers lightly stroking the tiny white hand on the picture. "Yeah, it's okay."

Abby took Gibbs' hand in hers. "We'd also like you to think about what you want her to call you. Gibbs or Jethro is fine if you like it, but Grandpa or Pop, which was what Tim called his grandfather, or if there's something you really liked, something you imagined your grandkids calling you, that would be even better."

The smile on Gibbs' face grew even wider. He kissed the top of Abby's head before looking at Tim and saying, "I like Pop."

* * *

They were on the way home, having grabbed a quick dinner and Abby's maid of honor dress, when Abby said, "Kelly what McGee."

"Huh?" Tim wasn't really paying attention, he was merging into traffic, and an idiot in a blue Suburban kept trying to stay exactly in his blind spot.

Abby can see he's focused on the road, so she waits for him to get into the lane he's aiming for before saying, "Middle name. You whipped James out to go along with Sean in like three seconds flat. What goes with Kelly?"

"Uh…" Tim's drawing a blank. Kelly Ziva doesn't sound right to him. Kelly Sarah.. not bad, but he's already got four Sarahs in his family. "Does something have to go with it? I don't have a middle name."

"Nope. But most people have them, usually honoring family or something like that. Like, you know, whipping James out nine seconds after Sean."

"About half of that is honoring Jimmy. A quarter is that James sounds really good with Sean. The other quarter is that Jethro's names are pretty awful so I'm not saddling any boys we have with them."

"Gibbs' names are fine!" Abby looks appalled that Tim would insult Leroy or Jethro.

"Says the woman who only refers to him by last name." And yeah, he loves Gibbs, but well, there are family names and family names, and if someone you love has a god-awful name, you find another way to honor them, like naming your kid after their kid.

Abby sticks her tongue out at him.

"Okay, fine, his names are great," lots of dry sarcasm on that, "for the 1950s. When have you met a Leroy or Jethro that was under fifty?"

"Never."

"And you know everyone on the eastern seaboard. So, what do you like for a middle name?"

"I don't know. Elizabeth?"

"Kelly Elizabeth McGee… Not bad. Not in love with it, but it's not bad. Anne?"

"That's Breena and Jimmy's number two girl name."

Tim tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. "So you're thinking we shouldn't snag it and leave them looking for a new one?"

"Yeah. With any luck they'll be having a conversation pretty similar to this real soon. Something fiction-y? What girl characters do you love?"

"You mean, besides the ones I've written?"

"Yeah, I do not want Amy, Lisa, or Gail to show up on the list."

"Okay… Willow, Fred, Zoe, Kaylee…"

"Whedon-verse, good first pick. No on Fred or Kaylee."

"I know, I'm just going through the list. And really Kelly Willow doesn't work, either." He glances to the left, the lane is clear, shifts over, and speeds up a little.

"Yeah, not good. Kelly Zoe is too many ee sounds."

"How about you, what girls characters do you love?"

Abby sighs and pets her belly. "Do we need to have that argument about the lack of awesome female characters in the kinds of things I like to read or watch again?"

"No." They'd gotten into a pretty heated argument about whether there were or were not any good strong female characters in recent fiction, with Abby claiming they were horribly rare and Tim saying they were all over the place if you just looked. It wasn't pretty. And probably wouldn't have been nearly as passionate had she not been hopped up on pregnancy hormones or he a writer. The makeup sex was fun, though. "Just, kind of annoying to be told there are no strong female characters out there when every single thing I write has them."

"I know. How about that series you gave me a while back… Autumn. I like her."

"Autumn was a psychopath, and the villain."

"Yeah, but she had a lot of style."

"Because she was a Fairy. Style is sort of a racial trait, what with the whole glamour thing. How about Claire? She was cool."

"Claire was cold. And Kelly Claire McGee… nope. I liked Sarah, too. She certainly fit the kick-ass, take-names strong female mold."

"I was thinking about that. Naming her after my sister is fine, but I've already got four Sarahs in my family. Probably don't need a fifth."

"Good point."

"Eowyn?"

"Yeah, I'm good with an out there name, but maybe not that far out."

"Leia? Queen of the kick-ass female heroes?"

"Kelly Leia McGee… Eh. Kelly's a really normal name… something too far out on the middle name isn't going to work."

"Probably right. We've got time. Don't need one tonight," he says as he pulls into their driveway. "Really, we don't need one at all. I like Kelly McGee."

"Unless we can find something we both love, we'll skip the middle name." She thinks about that for a moment as they walk in. Timothy McGee… Something was missing there. "Tim, why don't you have a confirmation name? Everyone else I know who got confirmed has one."

He slouches a little, tilting his head to the side and sighing. "I have one. It's just… kind of silly and embarrassing."

"Worse than Teresa?" Abby asks as she sits on the bottom step to take her boots off.

"Teresa is cool. Lots of good Teresas. Which one were you thinking of?"

"The mystic."

He laughs at that, approving. "And I am less than shocked. She ran a convent, and went into ecstatic trances, and was a major player theologically, right?"

"And wrote music and poetry too."

"That's not dumb at all." He unzips his coat and hangs it up. Then holds out his hand for Abby's coat.

"So what was yours?"

"Raphael."

She stops in the middle of taking her coat off and looks at him. "Why would you think that's silly or embarrassing?"

"Probably because these days all anyone knows is the Mutant Ninja Turtle."

Abby smiles at that, handing him her coat. "So, which one was he?"

"The sulky one with the sais."

She adds a little roll of her eyes to go with the smile. "Which angel? I know he's one of the big ones, but I besides Michael being the warrior, I don't remember which ones do what."

"The healer. I still thought I was going to be a surgeon then."

"Then it's a great name."

He thinks about that for a bit while kicking his shoes into the closet. "My dad didn't like it. He never went full out on me for it, maybe because I was seven. Maybe because he was sure I'd actually tell the priest who ran the confirmation class why I'd suddenly decided to change it. So he was just disdainful of it, and really talked up Nicholas and Brendan."

"Why those two?"

"Patron saints of sailors. But Penny and my mom really liked Raphael. And I really liked MASH, thought being a trauma surgeon would be the best thing ever. And since Father Sam kindly told me that no, there was no Saint Hawkeye or BJ, I went with Raphael."

Abby's nodding. "It's a good name."

"Thanks."


	182. BeautyIdentity

"I'm getting so fat!"

"Abby?" Tim had been in the bathroom, brushing his teeth, getting ready for bed. He stepped out and saw Abby staring at her backside in the mirror on her closet door, well, glaring at it in the mirror, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why.

On the way home from Gibbs' they'd picked up her maid of honor dress, and she was trying it on.

Back when Ziva picked bridesmaids dresses out, she'd had one pregnant bridesmaid and one who had just miscarried, so to say that she had no decent way of figuring out how her ladies would look in a month, when the dresses would be ready, was an understatement.

So, she had pulled all of her tactical thinking skills together, along with all of her fashion skills, and decided that anyone of any shape looks good in a strapless dress with an empire waist and a flowing crepe skirt that fell to just above the knees.

And, Tim would completely agree with that. He thinks Abby looks great in the ivory gown with a band of baby pink beading just below the breasts.

But she's staring at herself and scowling. Shifting from the back view to the side view, and scowling even more.

So he turns to look at her in the mirror. Maybe she looks different reflected. Nope.

"You look great."

"I look fat!"

He stared at her intently for a few seconds. "Nope. I can still see your tarsals, carpals, and clavicles. Not fat. Trust me, I'd know." At least on his body, being able to easily see his wrist, ankle, and collar bones is a very good sign of not having crossed the line between fit and plump.

"I have two chins when I tilt my head down." She says, head down, wiggling the offensive flap of skin.

"So does everyone." He demonstrates by looking down, and then tilts his head up. "You wouldn't be able to look up if you didn't have that skin there."

"My butt is huge!" She's looking at her backside again.

He's realizing that this is not a discussion where rational argument is going to help. They just went to the doctor today, so he knows she's gained fourteen pounds which is exactly where she should be for twenty weeks pregnant. So he retreats to the bathroom, puts his toothbrush back, and quickly rinses his mouth. Then he came out again, (she appeared to be studying her thighs and not liking what she was seeing) stepped behind her, and placed on hand on each hip, and began gently caressing the butt in question.

"It's soft and round and curvy."

"Stop that!" She looks like she wants to sulk, but he's not playing along, not on this. No one calls Abby ugly or fat, not in front of him, not even Abby.

"Nope. You, and this butt that appears to be annoying you, are absolutely delicious." He'd press up tight behind her, but he's naked, and though he's fairly sure his skin is dry and clean, this is a white dress so he can't risk getting any stains on it, so he stays a step back as his hands trace from her butt to her belly and breasts. "You are not fat. You are exactly the shape you're supposed to be right now, and I adore it."

He very carefully unhooked the top of the dress and pulled the zip down, then lifted it off of her, and draped it over her dresser. "Can't risk getting that stained or rumpled."

She's not exactly looking happy at him, but she's not as annoyed as she was a minute ago either.

He closes on her again, and turns her toward the mirror. Under the dress she had on a strapless bra and nothing else. He stood right behind her, and undid the bra, tossing it in the delicates hamper.

Then he pressed in close, erection rubbing against her butt as his hands stroked from her neck down her arms, fingers twining with hers.

"You're beautiful, Abby. And yeah, you're bigger than you used to be, but you aren't fat. You're all round and soft, ripe, succulent, and it drives me crazy because all I want to do is constantly rub up against you." He kissed her shoulder, and stroked her thighs, then ground his pelvis against her. "Feel that? Your body does that to mine." That got a smile out of her. "Half the time I'm in the lab these days, I've got a hard-on from watching you. You in those little dresses or skirts, tummy and breasts all plump and round. If Gibbs didn't have a habit of wandering down every ten minutes when I go down there, I'd have you bent over your desk, panties round your ankles, balls deep inside you, feeling you bite my hand to muffle your screams, my mouth on your shoulder for the same reason, every single day, twice on paperwork days."

She giggles a little at that, perking up as his fingers find her nipples.

"I have noticed that. You come down, and these days within ten minutes he does, too."

"Yeah, well, he's not blind, so he's noticed how good you look. And it's not like he just met me, so he's not exactly having a hard time figuring out how I'm responding to it or what I'm likely to want to do about it. And not to put too fine a point on it, but he was here once, too. I'm sure he remembers what it feels like to have a delicious pregnant wife."

That got another laugh, and she looked at herself again, less critically, but still less than thrilled at her current shape. "Not fat?"

"Not fat. Round, soft, ripe, succulent, scrumptious, exquisite… _fertile_. Think about it, on its most basic level that's what female beauty is to a man. Signs of fertility." His hands ghost over her breasts, belly, and hips. "Biology means I want to make babies. So you pregnant with my kid is going to hit all of my buttons, hard, fist slammed down on them pressing your full weight into them. Nothing is ever going to get to me the way this does. And it does, it really does, in a pure, balls in charge, brain isn't even checking in, oh god, SEX! YES! level. On a pure biology level, the only reason I exist is to get you pregnant, keep you pregnant, and make sure your and our kid survive. So… I guess what I'm saying is, I'm going to be a really unsympathetic audience for complaining about how you look, because all I see is SEX!, sex, sex, sex, sex, with a side of MINE! My woman. My baby." He kissed her neck, hands cradling her belly. "So, no, not fat. Not fat at all. Perfect. And if you asked Jimmy or Tony or Gibbs they'd tell you the same thing, not fat at all."

"I still think my butt looks huge."

He shook his head. "You're welcome to think that, but I don't."

"And your opinion is the only one that matters?"

"Damn right! My opinion on the subject seems to make both of us happy. Your opinion makes neither of us happy. So let's stick with mine."

She rolled her eyes a little. "I don't look like me."

Ahhh… Identity issues, not just changing body. That makes sense to him. It's something he's facing as well. But it's nothing he's got a set or easy answer for.

He kissed her shoulder, and Kelly took that moment to start kicking. The soft, fluttery sensation beneath his fingers helped him get his thoughts in order.

"I'll hand my badge and gun to Vance, but I'll still be me. You'll get rounder, look less like Abby, but you'll still be you. But you and I won't be the Tim or Abby we were. Just like Jimmy and Breena aren't the people they were before Jon and Molly. But they're still Jimmy and Breena, and we still love them and want to be with them."

She smiles a little at that, wrapping her arms around his neck. "It feels really weird to look in the mirror and have to take a second to realize who I'm looking at."

"I bet it does. I feel that way when I see pictures of myself over the years."

"But not when you look in the mirror?"

"I gained and lost the weight slowly enough that there was never a 'who the hell is that' moment. Okay, once… Remember when I buzzed my hair off?"

"Yeah. I love you, and I will always love you, but please, don't ever do that again."

"I'm not intending to. Anyway, for about a week after that, I kept wondering who that guy with the really round head was. I felt like I looked like Charlie Brown."

Abby laughs at that. "That was a pretty bad look for you."

"Yeah, I know I knew about a third of the way through that haircut, but by that point I was committed." He trailed his fingers down her arm, over her ribs and down to her hip. "I love you. I love this version of you. I'm going to love the version you'll be in three months, and the version you were three months ago. Kelly comes out, and everything is going to be droopy and saggy and I'm still going to love you."

"Don't remind me of that part. Breena's got horror stories of how bad she looked after Molly came out."

"Breena looked fine after Molly was born."

"You didn't see her naked."

"True. She still looked fine."

Abby turns in his arms to face him, placed a quick kiss on his lips and says, "Tim, besides her nursing breasts, did you notice anything, at all, about Breena after she gave birth?"

He flashes her his innocent look. "I kept up a strict policy of never looking below Breena's neck when she was nursing."

That gets a smile out of Abby. "Liar."

"Yes." He smiles back, and kisses the tip of her nose. "They really were fantastic."

"I agree."

His fingers find her breasts, and gently stroke over the sides. "And I'm going to be staring at yours all the time, too. If what Jimmy tells me about nursing breast being a look but don't touch sort of thing is true, I'll be looking and probably taking pictures, too."

"Horny bastard."

He smiles and kisses her. "For you, always."


	183. Cherry Blossoms and Tuxes

For the second time in six months, the extended Gibbs Clan gathered for a wedding.

But Jewish weddings don't exactly work the same way Christian ones do.

They're a two-step process.

And while in a Christian or secular American wedding the night before is the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, usually followed by Team Bride and Groom heading off for separate merrymaking, a Jewish wedding begins the night before with the signing of the Ketubah, the official marriage contract.

So, in order to give this ceremony proper honors, they're at the park Gibbs found for them, a little, out of the way place, probably popular a hundred years ago, but mostly forgotten now. But it's in okay (if somewhat wild) shape, it's not filled with other people, and the clearing they're in is ringed with blooming cherry trees, setting up for tomorrow.

The most important part, the chuppah, is up, and mostly decorated. (The girls are doing the flowers with the florist tomorrow.) But for now it's burnished rods of oak, finished to look like all the warmth of the sun has solidified into wood, woven together into four pillars. Gibbs and Breena attached the top supports, while Jimmy, Tony, and Tim dug the holes in the ground to keep the posts steady. Ziva and Abby straightened out the yards of gauzy cream and snow-colored fabric, and then draped it over the supports, weaving it through the posts.

Gibbs and Jimmy have lawn mowers so they're in charge of getting a path to the chuppah, and enough of the space in front of it to hold eighteen people trimmed down so that guests won't have to worry about being eaten alive by the grass and weeds.

Abby and Tony are in charge of posting signs. This place is pretty far off the beaten path so DiNozzo-David Wedding signs are going up. It's not that the GPS can't find it. Punch where you're going into your GPS while you're still in DC and it's got no trouble at all locating the place. It's that for most of them their GPS stopped working about three miles from the park, leaving them driving about on smaller and smaller roads in the middle of pretty rural Virginia, so old fashioned signs need to be set up.

Tim's wiring the lights for tonight. Technically, it's the Sabbath and they shouldn't be working at all, but setting up now works better for everyone's schedule, so they're here. The Rabbi on the other hand, won't be coming until the Sabbath is over, after sunset. So Tim's making sure that when he gets here, they'll have enough light to actually see the Ketubah, read it, and sign it.

Of course, off the beaten path means there's no electricity here, but he's hoping that the car battery he's got rigged to the lighting set up will do the job.

Ziva and Breena are setting up the chairs, putting them in place and making sure the satin covers are secure. Sure, they're probably asking for a freak thunder storm to show up and wreck everything by setting them up today instead of tomorrow morning, but they want to get as much done ahead of time as possible.

It's a small enough group they aren't bothering with a bride's side or groom's side. So they're set in three rows of six.

Two tents, one for team bride and one for team groom for the pre-wedding waiting about finish off the site.

It takes about two hours, but the site is (except for the flowers) all set and ready to go.

* * *

The downside of beautiful little park out in the middle of nowhere is that… It's in the middle of nowhere. So they got everything done, and then drove an hour back to DC to get ready for that evening.

The signing of the Ketubah is a big deal, and being invited to witness it is an honor reserved for close family and friends. So, you can't just wear the same grungy jeans, work boots, and button down you had on for setting up the chuppah.

And that downtime in the middle of the day gives Tim a little spot of time to run that last errand he'd been putting off for a week, namely grabbing his tux.

He got home with it while Abby was still damp from getting out of the shower. She's sitting on the bed, toweling off her hair as Tim walks in with the suit bag.

"Do I get to see?"

"Yes." He answers while putting it into his closet.

She flashes and exasperated look at him. "Do I get to see before the wedding?"

That got a grin out of him. "Do you want to see?"

"Yes! When do I not want to see you get dressed up?"

He laughs and begins to unbutton his shirt, pulling it over his head when he got the first three buttons undone. "Everything else all set for tonight?"

"According to my list, you getting a shower and dressed are the only two things left."

He nods, pulling off his socks. "Don't let me forget a pen."

"Good point."

Tim and Gibbs had been chosen as the witnesses to sign the Ketubah. Though many friends and family may be called to witness the signing of the Ketubah and the reading of the contract, two especially close friends are called to sign the contract in addition to the bride and groom. Traditionally the witnesses are men, though Ziva and Tony's congregation is egalitarian, allowing anyone who isn't a blood relative to sign. But when Tony and Ziva sat down to talk it over they chose the two men who had their backs, who would die to protect them, and kill to avenge them. They chose their team, and that's Tim and Gibbs.

Abby gets up, leaving their bedroom for a moment, and returns with one of Tim's pens, tucking it into the breast pocket of the suit he'll be wearing tonight. Once done, she heads to the bathroom to do her makeup.

A few minutes later, as she was putting on her mascara, Tim stood in the doorway to the bathroom and said, "Well?"

Abby turns to him, a wide, pleased, slightly amazed smile on her face, and says, "Oh." She put the mascara wand back into the tube and then put it on the sink, just staring at him. Tim's standing in front of her, expectant look on his face. Her eyes take him in from glossy black shoes to ebony cufflinks, midnight tie to sable wool-silk blend jacket. She blinked slowly, and exhaled, "Wow!"

Expectant broke into a wide grin.

"If I had known you looked like this in a tux, we might have gotten married with you in one."

He shifts the door, so he can see himself in the full-length mirror. "If I had known I could look like this in a suit, I might wear them more often. I'll say this for Tony, his tailor really knows what he's doing."

Abby's slowly circling Tim, looking at him appraisingly, hand trailing over his low back. "He really does. Yeah, I'm thinking you should do suits on occasion."

See, if you were to ask Tim, he'd tell you that he generally looks, well, kind of gaunt and lanky in suits. (At least over the last year. Previous to that he's looked plump and round in them, and he didn't love that look, either.) And not in what he considers a good way. He's never worn one that he thought really looked good on him. Which is why he rarely wears them. Weddings, funerals, testifying in court, and occasional nice date nights, and beyond that, they live in his closet and collect dust.

He's seen guys who do suits well. Tony, he always looks great.

And now he knows why. Apparently having someone who knows how a suit is supposed to fit go and actually make one for you results in you looking like James Fucking Bond, and not the Daniel Craig version, but Sean Connery.

Though as he looks at himself in the tux, he's thinking he's got more of a Loki in Germany look going than James Bond. A killer scarf and overcoat, and he'd nail it. (Well, at least as close as a guy who bears absolutely no resemblance at all to Tom Hiddleston can… though if he grew his hair out five more inches and slicked it back… Nope, face isn't sharp enough for that.)

The fact that custom clothing has never occurred to Tim seems like a glaring error right this second. His bed was custom made, so were his tattoos, wedding rings, and Abby's engagement ring. And it's not like he's adverse to spending money on clothing. He's got some good clothes that were pretty damn expensive.

And, if three grand on a suit can make him look like this, well… maybe he might want to get another one. Not for every day wear or anything, but maybe a gray one for hot date nights…

"I think you're right about that." He looks at the suits in his closet. He'd been intending to wear the dark gray one for tonight, and suddenly he's really not wanting to do that. "Well, suits made by Dom. My regular ones all look like utter crap now."

"No they don't."

"They don't look like this."

"True." Abby circles to face him, hands resting on his chest, and looked at him more closely. "Did you do an eldritch knot in the tie."

He smiled, a tinge of naughty playfulness pulling at the corners of his lips. "I can't look exactly like Tony and Jimmy, and this is subtle enough Tony won't flip out."

She laughs at that. "I like you in vests, too."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I bet the top half of this would look great with the McGee tartan."

"I bet it would, but I've already been told that Jimmy will pin me down and beat me into submission if I try to wear makeup or a kilt to tonight or the wedding."

Abby laughs at that. "Kilt, that vest, shirt, and tie, black nail polish, eyeliner, your boots." She looks at him, eyes warm and sparkling, trailing up and down his body. "Damn!"

He's smiling at that idea, enjoying the look of sexual hunger on her face. "Okay, yes, that will happen, but not tonight. I was thinking that maybe we'd do something special on Monday. That could be part of it."

The wedding, like many Jewish weddings, is on Sunday, and barring a catastrophe requiring all hands on deck, team Gibbs is off the Monday after the wedding. "What are you thinking of for Monday?"

"It's a surprise. But I think you'll like it, and that could definitely be part of it."

"I am intrigued."

"Good, and we're gonna be late if I don't get showered and changed fast."

* * *

And yes, after the tux, the suit he had intended to wear just looked sad. But he put it on, made a mental note to call Dom about a date night suit, and got ready for the reading and signing of the Ketubah.

They returned to middle of nowhere park as the stars were beginning to prickle through dusk, and found they were the last ones there. (Tim was quite pleased to see the solar switch he set turned the lights on when the sun sank. He'd really been hoping he wasn't going to get here and find everyone using their headlights to avoid wandering in the dark.)

For the signing the usual core group attended along with a few new additions, Senior, his date, and Ziva's Schmiel.

Senior with a date isn't anything new. Senior with a date who appears to be over sixty, a very attractive, polished, self-assured over sixty, but over sixty none-the-less, pleased Tony to no end.

Tony had been dreading meeting Daphine since his father mentioned he'd have a plus one. Probably because he assumed Daphine would be younger than Breena, twice as pretty and half as smart. His father's type. From Tony talking about it, Tim had certainly expected young, pretty, simple, and looking for money. So older, refined, a soft voice accented with something that sounds like French but he doesn't think actually is French, was a pleasant surprise.

One he didn't have much time to ponder.

The Rabbi is waving them forward, and he's still got to grab a hat from Ducky.

Tim doesn't own any hats. Scratch that, he's got one knit one for doing cold things outside in winter, and one super fuzzy furry one for doing really cold things, and unless his ears are in danger of frostbite, they stay in his closet. He hates the way he looks in hats. But covering his head is a sign of respect. And while tomorrow they'll all be wearing yarmulkes, today he's snagging a fedora from Ducky.

He kisses Penny's cheek, grabs the headgear, sets it on his head, and joins the Rabbi, Tony, Ziva, and Gibbs under the chuppah for the reading and signing of the Ketubah.

Tony whispered to him, "You're late!"

"I'm on time. You're all early."

"On time is late."

"Fine."

Then the Rabbi began the ceremony, explaining what was going to happen and why.

* * *

It doesn't take that long. And while the actual Ketubah is in Hebrew (Ziva told him that in Orthodox congregations they're in Aramaic, but their Reform congregation does Hebrew.) the Rabbi reads it in English since most of this group doesn't speak Hebrew.

Basically, there's no point to witnessing a document if you have no idea what's in it.

It's a very… functional is probably a good word… document. It basically lists the responsibilities of the husband (food, clothing, sex), what happens should there be a divorce, what sort of monetary settlements would be made, stuff like that.

In any other circumstance he'd call it a pre-nup. But apparently, since the dawn of Judiasm, the idea that in addition to vague and nebulous concepts of love and cherish (that's part of tomorrow's ceremony) there would also be an actual document stating exactly what is expected of the husband, and precisely what would happen should he not live up to it.

Tim thinks that's awfully cool.

Plus he's very amused by the idea that providing sex to his wife is the husband's duty and he can't just wander off without her permission thus cutting her off. He makes a mental note to mention to Gibbs that he can't just drag Tony off to the ends of the earth without getting Ziva's okay. Then he thinks twice about that, because if Jethro's not taking Tony or Ziva that means he'll take Tim, and he wants to stay close to home, too.

At the end of the reading came the signing. Since it is a Reform congregation, both Tony and Ziva sign it, followed by Gibbs and Tim.

The document was illuminated by hand. What Tim thinks of as traditional Hebrew script, black ink with silver and gold highlights, decorated with cherry blossoms twined together up and down the sides. It's beautiful, and that's intentional. Apparently it's a mitzvah to make things that glory God as beautiful as possible.

Tim's actually a little nervous about sticking his signature on it. Once upon a time it was a fairly tidy collection of left slanting letters, but these days it's messy scrawl with only three legible letters. It's not, even remotely, beautiful.

But it's his, and he's been chosen to put it on there, so he does.

And doing so means this part of the wedding is over, and it's time for dinner, and the party to start.


	184. Eat, Dance, Sing

A party staring Schmiel, DiNozzo Sr., and Ducky is a thing to behold. It's like the world's great story tellers all got together one night to see who could spin the longest, most intricate yarn.

And then they started playing off each other.

Tim watches the three of them and hopes that when he, Jimmy, and Tony are all older than dirt, that they'll be half as entertaining to the people around them, and a quarter as vital.

* * *

Middle of nowhere park was located not too far away from a fairly decent bed and breakfast, one that was willing to rent out their entire downstairs (and several rooms) for the party. (Off night, off season, it wasn't too hard to convince them to do a kosher dinner.)

So the twelve of them are around one large table, dinner served family style, but there's an open bar, and cleared space near them. (Tim's thinking the table they are at is probably a few tables together, and the other tables have been removed.) The main course is over, and they're lingering over stories, coffee, and dessert when Schmiel says, "Enough talking, it is time to dance," he stood up and held out his hand to Ziva.

That's greeted by silence, and Ziva staring at his hand. Sure, there's room, but… no music.

Finally Jimmy says, "Breena and I are in, but… music?"

Schmiel looks amused and irked. "You mean to tell me, with all of your fancy phones, none of you has something that will play music?"

Which caused all eyes to slide over to Tim, the tech guru. "Give me five minutes."

It took three. The proprietor did have a port that would work with his phone, and some speakers she was willing to donate to the party.

Tim figured that with this group, some of his peppier jazz would be a good choice, and set it to playing.

And with that, the party got really started.

* * *

He found Jimmy waiting for him after he got out of the restroom an hour later. Jimmy's grinning at him, and for a second he's wondering if he's got toilet paper on his shoe or something. He checked. Nope. Next thought that sprang to mind was whether or not that grin was about his possible long weekend shaving plans, but he doesn't think that's it.

Finally he said, "Okay, you're freaking me out just standing there and grinning. What's up?"

The grin got wider. "We're not telling anyone else besides Ducky, not for a while at least, but, we're pregnant again."

A huge smile spread across Tim's face as he pulled Jimmy into a hug. When he stepped back he said, "I'm so happy for you."

"Yeah, we are, too. Scared…"

Tim nodded, seeing that there's not just happiness on Jimmy's face. Mostly joy, a little tipsy, and a tinge of fear, but mostly joy.

"But really happy."

"How far along?"

"Nine days? Just found out this morning."

"Breena telling Abby?"

"Probably already has."

"No wonder you've been in such a good mood today." Yeah, they're prepping for a wedding, and that tends to result in happy people, but Jimmy's been in a _really_ good mood.

"Yeah." Jimmy's grinning and Tim hugged him again, just so happy to see a smile on his face that lights up his eyes again.

"When do you think you're telling everyone?"

"The earliest they can do the nuchal fold test is week ten day one, so, assuming everything is good, week ten, day one and a half. If not… It'll just be you guys and Ducky."

"Okay. Penny know?"

"She was there when we told him, so yes. Feels a little strange to get used to the idea of Ducky as half of a couple."

"You think that's weird, with the way this is going, he might literally be my grandfather at some point."

"Step-grandfather."

"Close enough."

"'Course these last few years he's pretty much been this hybrid grandfather/big brother/boss for me, so I'm kind of used to that."

Tim was nodding absently while he did a little math in his head. "New Year's baby?"

That got another grin. "December 24th actually."

"You and holiday babies."

"Says the guy whose daughter is due on the Fourth of July."

"Once is a fluke, two in a row, that's a pattern."

"Sure." Jimmy wrapped his arm around Tim's shoulders. "Come on, let's get back to the girls."

"Very good plan!"

* * *

Tim was dancing with Penny when she said to him, "So, your mom called me."

"Ah." He's been avoiding her. Not that it's too hard what with her living 2000 miles away. But usually he calls once a week and emails a few times, but since he had the flu he's been quiet.

"Seems she hasn't heard from you in a bit more than a month."

"That's likely true. I have sent a few I'm-busy-will-write-more-later emails."

"Yeah, she said that. She's worried. Afraid that becoming a dad is scaring you and you're drawing in on yourself." That's plausible. Given what she knows, that's really plausible, and a very in character way for him to react to something like that. It's just not true.

"What did you say to her?"

"That you're busy. Working hard, getting everything all set for your career change. She hadn't heard about that, so I filled her in on the impending switch to Cybercrime. I told her you were also helping to get a friend married, and no you aren't having a soon-to-be-dad panic attack."

"Thanks."

Penny has a searching look on her face. "You aren't, are you?"

His answering look says _Come on, you know me better than that._ "The only dad issues I'm having these days don't relate to my ability to be a dad for Kelly. Not directly at least."

"Good. You're going to have to talk to her sooner or later."

"I know. Did you say anything to her about…"

Penny shook her head. "No. There are things I want to say to her, but you get first dibs."

"Thank you."

"You'll let me know when you talk to her?"

"Yeah. I will. Just, not right now. As Abby pointed out to me, I may be able to cry silently, but not invisibly, so my she-didn't-know rationalization fell apart, and I don't know what to do with that, and I don't want to talk to her until I've got a plan."

Penny smiles up at him. That's a very, very Tim way of handling something.

The song ended and he led her to the front porch, wanting to talk a little longer without everyone else right nearby. There was a comfortable porch swing, and it was unseasonably warm for early April, so it was quite pleasant out.

"Do you know why they got divorced? I mean, in specific, what the trigger was?" He sitting facing the porch, staring out at trees, a garden, and a gently sloping lawn.

Penny takes the other side of the swing, and sits facing him. "No. Just that your mom had had enough of it and was done. Might be that your grandfather finally got sick enough he wasn't attached to the rest of the world. It wasn't a secret he didn't think your dad was a good match for your mom, and he did all he could to convince her not to marry him, but he also believed that once you got married you stayed married, no matter what. He was pretty well gone when she filed the papers, right?"

Tim thought about that, rubbing his forehead. He didn't like thinking about his grandfather's last two years. The only good thing, if it could be called that, was that his Alzheimer's hit hard and fast. They didn't have decades of him slowly fading away. "Yeah. The Alzheimer's had gotten bad enough he didn't know who anyone was any more."

"If I had to guess, that's why it happened then. Even your grandmother and I were telling her it was time to get out, had been for years. No one was happy."

"Were they fighting, the way my Dad and I were?"

"If so, I didn't know about it. You lived with them, what do you remember?"

"Not that. But I was also a kid and pretty self-centered back then. I know she wasn't happy. But my sense was it had a lot more to do with being abandoned, left alone with two kids six to ten months a year."

"That was my sense, too. Your mom wanted a husband, not just a ring and a name." Tim nodded at that.

Abby poked her head out the door at them. "Can I join in?"

"Sure," Tim answered. She scooted into the space between Tim and Penny on the swing, her back resting against his side, his arm draping over her shoulders.

He kissed her neck. "Talking about my mom."

Abby nodded, expecting that was up when they wandered off.

"I was thinking about the Ketubah, a little, too. Liking that it's spelled out that your job is to stay at home with your wife."

"Sometimes you have to leave, Tim." Penny said.

Tim often forgets that for forty years Penny was a Navy wife, forgets that she built weapons, forgets that it was the fall out of that that made her the pacifist he's known his whole life. "I know. Sometimes you have to fight. Sometimes you have to kill. I'm a cop. I get it. You put your life between your home and danger because it keeps them safe. I really do get it. But I don't think he cared one way or another what Mom thought about it, and I'm certain he didn't care what I thought about it." He shook his head. "That's grim." He squeezed Abby's hand. "Did Breena get ahold of you?"

"Yes!" The grin on her face is bright and happy.

"So, what are your psychic vibes saying, boy or girl?"

She thought about it, holding his hand, her fingers playing along his. "Girl, but I'm not getting any strong feeling on it. How about you, Penny?"

"No psychic vibes for me, but I'm leaning girl, as well. Tim?"

"Little boy. He'll be named after his grandpa."

"Thomas? Ed?" Penny asks, which blindsides Tim. Off the top of his head, he doesn't know the name of Jimmy's dad. The fact that Penny pays enough attention to Ducky's pet people to know that sort of thing pleases him greatly.

"Donald."


	185. An April Wedding

"You're not up, yet!"

There are many ways that Tim likes to wake up. There are quite a few more that he tolerates. And some he actively loathes.

Tony looming over him less than six hours after he got home, jogging his shoulder, positively buzzing with excitement, is closer to option C than A or B.

He's still a little fuzzy as to why Tony stayed at their place last night. He caught something about ritual purity, something else about really celebrating the wedding, Breena said something about bad luck, and there was also something about them having a fully functional guest room that didn't have DiNozzo Senior in it. But it was pretty late, and he was feeling awfully mellow (scotch, good news, and a wedding to celebrate made sure he was feeling pretty happy), so he hadn't been paying all that much attention to what was going on, just that Tony was in the backseat of their car as they pulled away.

But now, as he focuses one eye on the clock on his bedside table, and saw 7:05 glowing away on the readout, he's very temped to flip Tony the bird and tell him to go back to sleep.

What he instead did was sit up, rub his eyes, and say, quietly, (Abby's still asleep.) "Tony, you aren't getting married until 5:15. I am assuming you've got things you are going to want to do after that happens. I know for a fact you don't want to be sleepy for them. So, go back to sleep!"

"Too excited."

Tim sighed, very much wanting to go back to sleep himself. "Tony, go back to sleep. Otherwise you'll crash right around dinnertime, which you don't want to do. There's scotch in the kitchen if you need something to take the edge off. If you can't settle down, go run it off. But you need to go back to sleep. I don't want to see you again until you've had at least three more hours." _Until I've had three more hours._

Tony glared at him, but headed out of his bedroom, and Tim went back to sleep.

* * *

"You're not dressed!"

Tony is. He's got the suit on, tie perfect, pocket square pointy, hair in pristine shape. The only thing that's missing is the boutonniere, and that's because they're getting delivered to the wedding site. He's ready to go, vibrating with purpose and excitement.

Tim feels like he just did this. Though he knows it's been four hours.

Tim and Jimmy are in jeans and t-shirts, sitting on Tim's sofa, looking very relaxed.

Jimmy flashes him a _this is a job for the best man_ look. Tim takes a deep breath. "We don't have to leave for another four hours."

So, apparently for his wedding, Tim asked Tony something like ninety-seven times in three hours if he had the rings. Fixating on some little detail and going bonkers over it is apparently traditional groom behavior.

Tony's groom-freak-out has been focused on being late.

They're due at the park at 5:00. The wedding is set to begin at 5:15.

They are going to leave at 3:00 to get there with plenty of time to spare.

It's 11:00.

Tony checks his coat for his keys for the eleventh time, and Tim gets up and pours him a scotch.

He finds it vaguely amusing that he doesn't remember this part of his wedding. Obviously at some point on November 1st 2014 he got out of bed, got a shower, brushed his teeth, probably ate some sort of breakfast, definitely had some coffee. At some slightly later point, Tony and Ducky showed up at his house. Eventually Gibbs came over. He knows he talked with Gibbs, wrote Abby a poem, but the rest of that chunk of time between waking up and getting dressed was pretty blank.

"Drink."

Tony stares at the proffered drink like he's never seen one before. "I don't want to."

"Too bad. If you don't relax you're going to snap. So relax."

"Can't be late!"

Tim smiles. "Trust me; they aren't going to start without you."

"Can't let her down."

He puts his hand on Tony's shoulder and squeezes gently, trying to get his friend back in touch with the real world. "We are not going to be late, and you are not going to let Ziva down. The only thing that can happen by going now is us showing up while they're still setting up, and then Breena will yell at you for seeing Ziva before the ceremony. So, look, get out of your tux, put some jeans and a t-shirt on, and lets go see a movie."

Jimmy's just sitting on the sofa nodding. "If you don't cool down, you'll pop a blood vessel before the wedding, and that will make you late. As your doctor, I am prescribing you an ounce of forty proof ethyl alcohol. Drink."

"When did you become my doctor?" Tony asks, and shoots back the liquor.

"Day before yesterday. Now, you need to relax, sooo…" Jimmy's got his phone out and is googling what movies are showing and when. "Deadpool came out Friday."

"Ooohhh…" Tim looks pretty excited at that.

Tony rolls his eyes. Tim and Jimmy geeking out seems to have helped focused him on something other than pre-wedding jitters. "You want to take me to a Marvel movie?"

"An NC-17 one that's only showing in one theatre in the greater DC area," Jimmy says looking at his phone. "Got a showing at 11:30. We can grab a fast lunch, watch it, and still have plenty of time to get dressed and to the park."

* * *

Two hours later, they're back in the light, Tony is blinking a little, and saying, "That's the sort of stuff in those comic books? No wonder you're constantly reading them."

"Deadpool's something of a special case, Tony. He's not exactly Batman or Superman or Wolverine or Professor X," Tim says.

"By which Tim means this is the only character who constantly breaks the fourth wall, let alone starts the movie by slaughtering everyone involved in making the last movie he was in."

"Gotta admit that Hugh Jackman-Deadpool fight was awfully cool," Tim replies. The guys who made this thing really _got_ Deadpool, it was a massive, meta-breaking, self-referential, no-holds-barred fan-fest. He's fairly sure no one expected to make a cent on it and they did it for the fun of the characters. He does know that he was reacting in a manner that was rather inappropriate for a thirty-seven-year-old man, and that Abby would have probably referred to what he was doing as 'mad fangirl squeezing.'

"Yeah. So are those movies usually that violent?" Tony asks.

Tim laughs. "Nothing says contemplating binding my love to yours for the rest of my life like 220 corpses in the first ninety seconds of the film."

"Yeah, it wasn't exactly just-about-to-get-married material."

"Got your mind off of it, didn't it?" Jimmy says, sliding behind the wheel of his car.

"Talking about movies," Tim says, bucking his seat belt. "Did Gibbs get the book to Ziva?"

"Assuming everything's going right with the girls, yeah. I gave it to him last night."

"Good."

* * *

Ziva woke to the sound of knocking at her door. It took her a second to figure out where she was, but then it clicked. She, Gibbs, Ducky and Penny, and Schmiel had stayed at the B&B. Heading all the way back into DC when you didn't want to go home (because home had the empty bed in it) didn't make much sense.

So they stayed.

And at exactly ten o'clock, way after her usual wake up, Gibbs was doing exactly what he told her he'd do, give her a wake up knock.

"I'm up."

He poked his head in tentatively. "Can I come in?"

"Certainly."

"Got some things for you." Things appeared to be a steaming hot mug of coffee and a small rectangle wrapped in white and silver paper.

He sat on the side of the bed, next to her, handed her the coffee, kissed her cheek, and then laid the package in front of her.

"Wedding present?"

He nodded. "From Tony."

That got a smile out of Ziva. "What is it?"

The expression on his face said, _open it and find out_. So she did. It was a book. A journal really, a nice one, hard bound, black leather, white satin ribbon between the pages. She opened to the marked page and saw the page was covered in Tony's handwriting. She flipped through the pages seeing all of them, every single page of the entire book, was covered in his handwriting.

She returned to the marked page, figuring he had marked it for a reason and read: "_Have you never met a woman who inspires you to love? Until your every sense is filled with her? You inhale her. You taste her. You see your unborn children in her eyes and know that your heart has found a home. Your life begins with her, and surely without her it must end." –Don Juan DeMarco._

At first she felt the rush of those words. An almost hot thrill through her body, knowing that he had found them and written them for her, for a second she floated on it, eyes lingering over the curve of his letters, the image of him writing it down, filling her mind's eye.

Then there was curiosity. "Who is Don Juan DeMarco?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I think it's a what."

"A what?" Ziva looked taken aback. Don Juan DeMarco did not sound like the name of a what.

"Tim and Tony were talking about this. Movie quotes. All the ones that make sense to him now you're in his life." He'd been there when the two of them got talking about if they had to be quotes from movies Tony had actually seen. He'd found some he really liked that were in movies he would never voluntarily watch, and they were debating over if it was enough that he just really liked them or if he actually had to have a connection to them. They'd gotten to the crime scene before they finished that conversation, so Gibbs never heard how it ended.

Ziva inhaled quickly, felt the sting of tears in her in her eyes, and exhaled slowly. "Oh."

"Yeah." Gibbs smiled. "Abby and Breena should be here in an hour. Thought you might like some time to read."

Ziva wiped her eyes, nodding, and flipped to the first page. _"I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night…I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." –When Harry Met Sally_

Gibbs kissed her one more time and got up to leave her with her present.

* * *

As he prepares for his third wedding in two and a half years, Tim's come to a few conclusion.

A: It is much easier to be the best man than the groom, and easier to be a guest than the best man. This is not to say that he didn't love his own wedding, but he can feel that he was much more 'present' at Jimmy's wedding, and he can feel that's going to be true for Tony's as well. That outside of himself feeling that was with him all through his wedding isn't here today, and he appreciates it, because he can really be in the moment now and enjoy this.

B: He doesn't love public speaking. Which is why guest is superior to Best Man. Though he does think his speech is pretty good.

C: Small weddings are better than big ones. They had thirty-eight people at theirs, and part of the whole Groom thing was working the crowd, seeing everyone, talking to them, spending some time with them, and honestly, it was exhausting. Which is, once again, not to say he wasn't happy to see everyone, but still, it was tiring. If he and Abby ever renew their vows, it'll be their family and that's it. Tony and Ziva got the guest list down to twenty-two, and Tim's thinking that's a pretty good number of people for a party.

D: He is deeply, profoundly grateful that the people he loves have found their own loves.

* * *

In all honestly, McGee and Palmer laughing at him about the whole being nervous about not being on time thing aside (because it's 4:30, the wedding doesn't start for 45 minutes, and now they've just got to sit there and wait), Tony's a whole lot less freaked out right now than he expected to be.

Really, he was fairly certain he'd be on the verge of throwing up right now.

But he's not.

He's sitting in a fairly small tent with McGee, Palmer, Ducky, and Senior, and feeling, honestly, pretty cool. It's like now that he's here he can't mess it up. He owns it, and it's time to get going.

He's ready for this.

He's playing with Ziva's ring. As per the tradition it's a plain, gold band. White gold so it'll go with her engagement ring. It's his, because the gift must be something belonging to the groom. On the inside of it, he had inscribed at lo levad/you are not alone. He'd wanted the symbol of the promise in both languages. Wanted a somewhat nebulous idea that started the day she left for Israel to bury her father and was coming to fruition today, to rest against her skin for the rest of her life.

And in a little over half an hour, it will.

"Can I get a minute with Junior?" Senior asked the others. That surprised Tony, yes, they have been getting along better this last year but one on one heart to hearts are still really rare.

Okay, non-existent. Of course, getting married is not-well, for him at least, Senior's a different story, he thinks his dad was married five times by the time he was his age-an everyday sort of thing.

"Dad?" Tony asked after the other guys had filed out.

"She's a beautiful girl, Junior. She's strong and capable and doesn't take any of your bullshit and loves you dearly and I am so happy you found a woman like that. She looks at you the way your mother used to look at me. So take some advice from a man who had the love of his life and screwed it up: you will be vastly better off if you put her first. There are things you're going to want, things that will bring a quick flush of pleasure or make you happy for a few days, there are things she is going to want that will scare the living hell out of you, and avoiding those things might make you feel good, make you feel safe.

"But that's happiness. And happiness is shallow and easy. But for you, Ziva's the path to joy. You stay with her, you put her first, you be the man I know you can be, and you will find joy and peace and a home and family worth having.

"I screwed things up with your mom. I screwed them up with you. And I spent fifty years chasing happy, because it was easy, and avoiding joy because it was hard and scary. Don't make my mistakes. It looks like you've figured that out, but, I wanted to say it to you. Wanted you to hear it."

"Thanks."

"You're a better man than I am, keep it up, and you'll build a marriage and life that when you're my age, you'll look back at and cherish."

"I intend to."

His father is smiling, a genuine, warm and loving smile. "Good. Everyone talks about the vows, the promises you make her, and they matter, matter more than almost anything, but you also need to make some promises to yourself, promises to support your vows to her. Promise yourself to avoid temptation. Promise yourself that you will commit to lasting joy and not transitory pleasure. And promise yourself to remember that she is what makes your life worth living."

"I will, Dad."

"Good. Okay, enough seriousness." Senior checked his watch. "Ten more minutes to go."

* * *

"Almost ready?" Jimmy asks. Having been booted out of the guy's tent he wandered over to see how Team Bride was doing.

From the looks of it the correct answer was, almost done. Abby and Breena are dressed. Gibbs has everything but his tie done. Ziva's almost ready to go, probably just finished her makeup and needs to get into her dress.

They look like they're within five minutes of being ready for show time.

Breena kisses him, twirls a little, flaring the skirt of her dress. "Almost ready. Just a few finishing touches. How are things on your side?"

"All ready to go. Granted, Tony's been ready to go since 5:15 this morning if what Tim tells me is true."

"Should have had him here then. Could have gotten the site finished and let us sleep longer." Schmiel adds.

"And what are they doing now?" Ziva asks as she drapes Gibbs' bow tie around his neck.

"Senior wanted a moment alone with Junior, so off we went. Tim and Ducky are checking in with the Rabbi making sure everything is set on that side."

"Good." Abby says.

"I should probably head back to the guys. Let them know things are all set over here." Jimmy kisses Breena one more time, then heads to Ziva, kissing her cheek, and to Abby for one last smooch. He smiles at Gibbs, wraps his arm around his shoulder and says, "You know, it's a very fine thing to spend your life surrounded by beautiful women!"

Gibbs grins and gently shoves Jimmy toward the entryway.

* * *

Tim would say this for Tony and Ziva's wedding, it is, without a doubt, the most beautiful and elegant wedding he's ever seen.

April in DC can mean everything green and pink with cherry blossoms, or it can mean gray and cold.

They got green and soft pink and warm spring breezes.

The chuppah is in a grove of Cherry trees. It's covered in gauzy white fabric and daisy chains of baby pink, cream, and white roses, ivy, and more cherry blossoms.

Team Bride (The girl part of it at least. Abby told him Gibbs and Schmiel are in black.) is in white. Abby and Breena are in cream, strapless, empire waist gowns, each with a light pink band of beading under the breasts, and both of them with more cherry blossoms in their hair.

Team Groom is in black, broken only by white dress shirts and cream rose boutonnieres.

And the festivities are about to begin.

Traditionally, the grandparents would go first. But there are no grandparents, so the procession is beginning with the Rabbi.

He takes his place under the chuppah and is followed by Tim and Jimmy. Usually the groom would be escorted by his parents, or his father and the father of the bride. But this group is short on parents, too. So Ducky and Senior walk Tony to the chuppah and stop a few steps away. Both of them hug him before going to their seats in the front row, next to their ladies. Tony steps beneath the chuppah on his own, showing that he is entering this marriage of his own free will.

In his left hand, Tim's holding a glass in a white velvet bag. For his wedding Tony held the rings. For Tony's he's holding a glass. The objects change, but the job is the same: be the guy holding the thing that says, 'we're married.'

The girls come next. Breena and Abby, and Tim lights up to see his wife, beautiful in white and pink, light breeze fluttering her skirt and the tendrils of her hair. He smiles at her, and she smiles back at him. And he knows they're here for Tony and Ziva, but like with Jimmy's wedding he knows that today he'll make, remake the promises that bind them together.

Thoughts of that are sidetracked by Ziva, escorted by Gibbs and Schmiel.

And it is true that to Tim, Abby is the most beautiful woman on Earth. Heart, mind, soul, and body: she is his definition of beauty.

It is also true that Tim is not blind, and appreciates feminine beauty in its many forms.

And Ziva, in a long, flowing spill of… he's not even sure what color it is, ivory or cream with little silver threads maybe, hair long and loose, decorated with a few cherry blossoms, a translucent veil of shimmering silk skimming over her face and shoulders, is gorgeous.

He hears Tony see her. There's a fast, sharp, almost whistling intake of breath. And he's behind Tony so he can't see the expression on his face, but he sees his shoulders go tight, and his posture straighten up a little further.

The three of them pause a about ten feet before the chuppah. Both Gibbs and Schmiel kiss her cheek, then they too go to sit in the front row, Ziva takes three steps on her own, showing that she too comes to this marriage of her own free will. Then Tony joins her, takes her hand, and leads her into the chuppah, a space designed to represent the home they will share for the rest of their days.

He lifts the veil from her face and the ceremony begins.

Once again the Ketubah is read, and this time wine is drunk to go with it, celebrating the union.

Unlike the Christian tradition the rings are not blessed, and the vows are only one line, but as Tony takes Ziva's hand in his, and repeats the Rabbi's words, "Haray ata mekudash lee beh-taba'at zo keh-dat Moshe veh-Israel,*" he's smiling brilliantly, crying a little, and more deeply, sincerely happy than Tim's ever seen him.

The gesture repeats, Ziva placing the ring on Tony's finger, repeating the words, glowing with love and joy, and Tim catches Abby's eye, and tries to send all of the love, all of the joy, all of the contentment and peace and euphoria that life with her has given him in a look, and maybe he didn't quite get it all across, because how could anything get all of that across, but he sees the answering love in her look, and the gentle slide of her fingers across her tummy, and he's not even sure it's possible to accurately sum that feeling up.

What he does know is that if he doesn't stop exchanging googoo eyes with Abby he's going to be late with the glass, and since he's only got one job during the ceremony, he can't mess it up. After all, he doesn't want Tony wishing he'd picked Jimmy for best man. Of course, Jimmy's probably giving Breena the exact same look and is probably paying even less attention to the proceedings that Tim is, because he doesn't actually have to do anything other than stand there.

So Tim flashes her a quick smile, starts paying attention to the ceremony again, watching the two of them kiss with both tenderness and passion, and made sure the glass was where it needed to be so Tony could smash it.

"Mazel Tov!"

* Behold, you are consecrated to me with this ring according to the laws of Moses and Israel.

* * *

A/N: Sooo... I've gotten my blog back up to date, finally! Which means if you feel like heading over to Characters Are My Heroin Dot Blogspot Dot Com you can see all the cool pictures I've got up. Basically, if say, you wanted to see Tim in a Fedora, Tony in his tux, Ziva in her dress, or lots of other cool bits, to the blog with you. The shots are with the correct bits of the story, so you'll have to go several chapters back to get all the goodies, but they are finally up! Woot! Tomorrow the rest of the wedding, and then or the day after the "Wedding Album" which is a collection of pictures that I didn't have story bits for but had in mind as part of the Tiva wedding!


	186. The Yichud

Tradition holds that the bride and groom have a few minutes alone after the ceremony, so as the guests milled about and the photographer got shots of everyone, Tony and Ziva got to actually see each other, alone, for the first time today.

Tony actually feels a little silly. There's this huge grin on his face that won't go away, and he almost wants to babble at her, she's so beautiful and he's feeling so… so something, so much of whatever it is he can't dig individual feelings out of it.

She's smiling at him, brilliant joy on her face.

He stands in front of her, hands on her waist, and for a long second just looks, his eyes trailing from her hair to lashes, lips to throat.

Finally he got it together enough to say, "Hi."

She started to giggle at that, peals of laughter, gasping breath, tears streaming down her face and pulled him close, holding him flush against her, her face pressed into his chest, arms tight on his waist. That set off his laughter, he felt it bubbling out of him.

Eventually they calmed down, and she looked up at him, warm, bright smile on her face.

"Hi?"

He kissed her, lips soft and gentle on hers, eyes sparkling with joy. "Hello, Mrs. DiNozzo."

She brushed her fingers through his hair, and then over his lips. "Mrs. DiNozzo. It's hard to believe it is real."

His fingers found hers, stroked over her wedding band. He took her hand in his and kissed her it. "It's real." One more kiss, to her lips again. "I love you, Ziva."

"I love you," she murmured against his lips.

For a long moment they stood there, holding each other, enjoying the closeness and intimacy the outside world rarely gets to see. They could hear the buzz of conversation outside of the tent, but for a little while longer it would just be them, together, in love, and now, married.

* * *

A/N: A short little Tiva love scene for Ship-a-holic. Alas, no smuttiness for them from me. I don't feel like I've got a good enough handle on either of them to write good smut for them. But a quick little we just got married moment, sure. :) More wedding tomorrow!


	187. A Reception

They returned to DC for the reception. The Ruther's Estate Country Club had the advantage of being located not too far away from everyone's homes, having a small, intimate space they could eat in, and beautiful gardens (more blooming cherry trees) set with a dance floor.

Which was when it occurred to Tim that there is a downside of a small wedding. When you're the best man and maid of honor in a wedding with twenty-four people, it's pretty hard to just slip away for ten or so minutes.

Everyone can tell at a glance if someone is missing.

So you need a distraction.

Unfortunately Tony and Ziva's wedding seemed to be really short on distractions. Scrumptious food, swing music, beautiful settings (cherry trees wrapped in white Christmas lights, tea lights flickering in crystal vases, and everything decked in white and pink roses and more cherry blossoms), an elegant white on white cake, all of that was available aplenty. Ten minutes where no one was looking for them, not so much.

He'd scouted the terrain two weeks ago when he and Tony showed up to pay the last deposit and make sure the arrangements were all set. The garden was more or less made for trysting. It had about six little alcoves, some even with benches, tucked away from the sight of pretty much everyone else.

He'd found an especially nice one: maybe ten by ten, high stone wall covered in ivy on two sides, hedge on the third and half of the fourth, two weeping willows bracketed a small stone koi pond, and a wrought iron bench sat right next to it. All he had to do was get them there.

Apparently Jimmy was having a similar issue. The girls were dancing with Schmiel and Gibbs, when Jimmy drifted over to him and asked, "How long is your speech?"

Tim thought it through. "Three minutes, maybe a little faster if I talk quickly."

Jimmy thought about that. "Too fast. What if you talk slow and ad lib some."

"No! I'm horrible at ad libbing. Talk slow I can maybe get it to five. Why?"

Jimmy smiled dryly. "The same reason you want me to do something to draw attention away from you and Abby."

Tim laughed at that. "Properly celebrating the wedding?"

"Yeah." Jimmy's grinning. "This is so much easier when there's fifty people around."

"I'm noticing that." He thought about something else for a second. "Did you slip off during my wedding?"

"Of course. No one's looking at anyone other than the bride and groom during the cake part."

"Good point." Tim eyes the cake. "That'll probably take a few minutes."

"Schmiel tells me singing is traditionally part of celebrating a Jewish wedding."

Tim nodded. "You could probably get him to sing something with you right after that."

"I probably could. You could probably get Abby to come up with a quick, off the cuff toast to go with yours."

"I probably could."

They've both got wide smiles on their faces, satisfaction at having a plan in place.

* * *

So, five months pregnant means the traditional up against the wall quickie is out. (Which was why Tim was scouting the territory ahead of time. Every building on Earth has a chunk of wall in a somewhat-less-than-easily-accessible location, finding a place to sit or kneel is more of a challenge.)

But when the MC called everyone together for the cutting of the cake, he took Abby's hand, whispered in her ear, "Jimmy bought us ten minutes," and they edged away from everyone else, deeper into the garden.

And like the last two times, it's fast, and naughty, and so wrong, and feels so good, and he's just so incredibly in love with this woman.

He's sitting across the bench, and she's in his lap, one leg snug between his hips and the back of the bench, other foot on the ground, and that position's intentional, he wants to look her in the eye, touch her face, kiss her. Face to face sex is getting rarer as Kelly gets bigger, but this still works for the time being.

He's babbling a little, telling her how much he loves her, how good she feels. But he feels her breath on his thumb as he draws it across her lower lip, and that focuses him, makes him very aware of his own breath, and he remembers a promise he made to her silently at Jimmy and Breena's wedding, and out loud the day after he almost froze to death, one he modified a little for his wedding vows.

"From this day to my last, I will be here and I will love you." He kisses her, holding her face in his hands as she stills on him. "This breath to my last and all the ones in between are yours, Abby."

She's smiling brilliantly, then kisses him, slipping against him, spreading a flush of pleasure through him. "This life and the next, Tim, I will always love you." Those words carried him over the edge, and a second later she joined him, shuddering in wet, joyful pulses.

_Namaste._ They'd been talking about it a few days ago. Abby had gotten a new yoga video. They'd both decided it was time to try some new moves. The video started and ended with that, and he'd been under the impression it was more or less Hindi for hello/goodbye. Abby thought it was a bit deeper than that. Thirty seconds of googling later and half an hour of reading showed they were both right. But, deeper meant something like the (insert good thing here, love, joy, intellect, whatever) in my soul recognizes yours. For the most part for Tim it's just a word, but right now he feels it.

The love in his soul rejoicing at the love in hers, floating in Tony and Ziva's, Jimmy and Breena's, and reveling it. That's probably as close to metaphysical as he'll ever get, but that's fine.

They're here, together, celebrating the love that makes life rich, vibrant, and glorious.

* * *

"And how does it feel to know you have gotten all of your 'kids' married off?" Ducky asks Jethro as he sits next to him.

"Not bad at all, Duck, not bad at all." He's got a soft smile on his face as he watches Tony and Ziva dance with each other.

"I'd imagine it is satisfying to have all your dear ones settled."

"Not all of them."

Ducky sends Gibbs a questioning look.

Gibbs' gaze lands on Penny, who's dancing with Tim and Abby. "Might be nice to be the best man at one of these things."

Ducky smiles at that, then shook his head a little. "I'm afraid best man duty will be confined to Fornell's wedding."

Gibbs' eyebrows shot up. He had thought Ducky and Penny were getting on very well. Ducky sees the alarm in his expression and says, "Nothing like that Jethro. We are old. Our estates and wills are set, and a marriage would only complicate things. Her semester at the University of Pennsylvania will be ending in May, and after that, Penny will be buying half of my home, and we will vest full rights of survivorship upon each other."

Gibbs nods. That makes sense to him.

"Beyond that, we have comfortable retirements set up. She does not need my money, nor I hers. However, if you were to feel like hosting an intimate family celebration in our honor come May, I can assure you that would be welcome. If you like, you can even give a speech." There's a slightly teasing tone in Ducky's voice as he says that.

"Just might."

"Perhaps you'd set the record for the shortest best man's toast?"

"Maybe." Gibbs grins.

Ducky watches as Jimmy cuts in, whirling Penny away from Tim and Abby, Breena joining them. He looks away from them to Jethro's hand, where his wedding band is still on his fourth finger.

"I find it somewhat amusing to think that this late in my life, I've found, for all practical purposes a wife, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. I find it more amusing to see how intensely happy it makes me, and how stupid I feel for not having sought it out sooner."

Gibbs nods, looking away from the dance floor to Ducky.

"Jethro, do not wait until you're my age to go after it. You're so close to having what you want out of life. Don't keep waiting until your days are numbered in years and not decades."

"I'm getting there, Duck."

"Good."

* * *

One of the upsides of a twentyish person wedding is that it's pretty easy to get everyone's attention when it's time for the Best Man toast. Likewise, Tim knows everyone in this group, it's family and close friends, hell, the only person here he doesn't know is Daphine, so it's not like this is nerve wracking.

Which is good, because he really doesn't love public speaking.

But it's time. The DJ gives him the microphone, which seems a little weird, there's not a lot of people and they're in a fairly small room, but messing with it buys Jimmy and Breena, who vanished ten seconds ago, another forty seconds.

Tony and Ziva are watching him, Ziva sitting in Tony's lap, Tony's arms wrapped around her, her head resting against his shoulder.

Tim smiles at them and begins. "Sometimes you can look at two people and know. They just fit. Where the one zigs the other zags and you can line them up like the edges of the jigsaw puzzle." He puts the mic down and twines his fingers together, demonstrating the idea. That being exactly as far as he's willing to go when it comes to ad libbing. If he goes any further off script, this'll become a rambling disaster.

"And then there's Tony and Ziva, who did everything they possibly could for as long as humanly possible to deny it." Tim had been addressing the room, but he turned to face them. "I'd like to take this moment to say something to both of you, something I've been waiting almost a decade to say…

"I told you so!"

Tim was very pleased to see that get a laugh. He'd been fairly nervous that line would fall flat or they'd take it wrong, but fortunately, like Abby said it would, it went over well.

"Ten years ago my first book came out. And in that book 'Tommy' and 'Lisa' took one look at each other and fell madly in lust. Two books later it had grown into love. Meanwhile these two were doing everything in their power to pretend that's just so not happening. To the point of this one," he pointed to Ziva, "actually called me up, made me come to her home, and hit me upside the back of the head with the book when they first said, 'I love you.' Hard!"

He paused again, letting the laughter run down, and heard Tony say quietly, "Hello, Pot, it's Kettle, you're black."

He smiled at Tony and nodded, acknowledging that technically, he and Abby had taken even longer, then continued, "And the only reason he didn't do exactly the same thing was because he didn't read that book until after they had hooked up."

Tim paused again, let the laughing die down, and finished up, "So, I'll admit, standing here at your wedding, having spent more than a decade watching you two finally own up to the fact that you fit, perfectly, to feeling, well, a little vindicated and a whole lot smug." Tim grinned, laid his hand on Tony's shoulder, and kissed Ziva's cheek, his voice shifting to something less humorous, more sincere. "And I'm also feeling deeply, profoundly grateful that you two did figure it out, and that I am here to see you celebrate your love and your commitment to spending the rest of your lives together, because if there ever were two people who deserved the joy of finding the one who fits, it's you two."

Tim lifted his glass. "To Tony and Ziva and the love and life they'll share."

They'd all drunk, and he was getting ready to hand the microphone to Abby to stretch it out a little longer when he saw Jimmy and Breena sneak back in. He raised his eyebrow, and Jimmy nodded. Tim smirked, that was, at most, four and a half minutes. He doesn't know if he should be jealous of Jimmy or pity him.

* * *

He got Jimmy alone an hour later. "Four and a half minutes?"

"Four and a quarter, had to get there and back."

Which made Tim realize that fifteen seconds of getting there and back meant they were literally right outside the dining room, probably about two feet away from the sliding glass door that separated it from the garden, and in full view of anyone who might have walked outside.

"How do you even do that?"

Jimmy grinned, wide, happy, no filters in place, vast wodges of TMI about to come sloshing out, and Tim quickly held up a hand saying, "In general, don't need specifics."

Jimmy's grin didn't waver. "Practice."

Tim laughed. "Time to grab Tony and give him his present?"

Jimmy checked his watch: 10:35. They'd probably want to wrap things up sooner rather than later. "Yeah, I think so."

"I'll get him. You get it. Meet at my car?"

"Sounds good."

Tony was dancing with Ziva, and Tim decided to wait for the song to end before wandering over. "Can I borrow your husband, Mrs. DiNozzo?"

Tony's looking at him curiously, wondering what's going on. Ziva's smiling. "And will you return him promptly?"

"Won't take more than fifteen minutes."

Now he's really got Tony's attention.

"Then you may have him."

"Good. Come on." He's smiling brightly, really enjoying the wary look on Tony's face as he follows Tim into the parking lot.

"Okay, why are you dragging me out here?" He sees Jimmy leaning against Tim's car. "Okay, why are both of you dragging me out here?"

"He's dragging, I'm lying in wait," Jimmy says.

Tony notices the bag sitting next to Jimmy on the hood of Tim's car.

"What is that?"

Tim slaps him on the shoulder, and Jimmy laughs, both of them really enjoying this.

Tim starts: "We know you wanted something a lot sexier for your bachelor party, and well, neither of us may be big on strip clubs and lap dances from strangers, but we're also firmly in favor of you having a hell of a good time with your wife. So…"

Jimmy hands him the bag. It's a plain, brown paper, Whole Food's bag, and it's heavy. "Honeymoon fun pack."

"Oh God, what the hell is in there?" Tony's looking halfway between really disturbed and ready to burst out laughing as he looks into it.

"Fun stuff," Jimmy says, "Lube—"

"Good stuff, lasts forever, won't dry out," Tim adds.

"Condoms—"

"Why do I want condoms? What am I, fifteen?"

Tim rolls his eyes, and Jimmy gives him a _really, you need us to spell it out_ look. Tony stares at them and then seems to get what they're talking about and a very dirty smile spreads across his face as he says, "Oh."

"More lube that actually tastes good," Jimmy's talking, but Tim's shaking his head _no._ Of course, he doesn't like any of the flavored ones just as a matter of principle, but Breena liked the variety pack they got, and Abby said it was good, too. And, well, yeah, he didn't mind the 'homework' that Abby did on multiple brands to see what the good ones were. And he's assuming Jimmy likewise approved of Breena's test of lube flavor. Jimmy's still talking and Tim think's he missed a few sentences there, but caught back up with, "…Tim added some satin ropes. Cock ring, since you've mentioned the can't-get-it-up-six-times-a-day thing, that'll help with that. Fourteen little blue pills, too, don't take more than one of them a day, okay?"

Tony's stunned by that. "Wait, what?"

"You forgot Jimmy can write prescriptions, didn't you?" Tim says, while Jimmy just keeps grinning.

"I don't need—"

Jimmy cut in, "Neither of us think you do. Just, assuming you, or more importantly Ziva, doesn't want to leave your hotel room, you've got back up now." Jimmy's having way too good a time with this, his smile is so big his face looks in danger of cracking.

Tony's staring at him curiously. "Is that what you meant by 'day before yesterday'?"

Jimmy nods.

Tim takes over on the inventory. "Let's see, three different vibrators, batteries for them, that's part of why it's heavy. There's an adaptor for the one that plugs in."

Tony's staring into the bag. "How many batteries are in there?"

"A lot. You won't run out. Mini Kama Sutra. Mini Joy of Sex. 1001 Sex Positions—"

"You guys know I've had sex before? A whole lot of sex."

"Sure. Hence this stuff, you're going to have to go deep to find new stuff, and we've made sure you've got everything you need to whip something new out on Ziva," Jimmy says.

"LED candles for mood lighting." Tim picked up a small, nicely-wrapped rectangle. It's even got a bow on it. "What's this?"

"No idea. Breena stuck it in there." Jimmy sorted through a bit and came up with another, larger, also wrapped square. Tim recognized the wrapping paper on this one. "Abby added one, too."

"Huh. We don't know what the girls thought you'd need, but it's in there."

"What is this?" Tony's holding something that looks like a collection of small to larger spheres on a flexible plastic rod.

"Anal beads," Tim says matter-of-factly.

"Tim's idea." Jimmy adds, clearly signaling _wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole let alone buy them for you_.

Tim catches that and says, "What? They're fun."

Tony drops them back into the bag. "If I've already got condoms for that, why do I want those?"

Tim looks really cocky, and Tony's wondering exactly how much he's had to drink. "Who says they're for her? I mean, I guess you could use them on her, but she doesn't have a prostate, so…"

Tony closes his eyes and winces a little. "Okay, that's _way_ more than I needed to know about you."

Tim took one last thing out of the bag. "And, this took a little hacking and is not the most strictly legal thing ever, but pack your stuff, put one of these stickers on it, and TSA and whatever they've got in South Africa'll leave them alone."

"You got me diplomatic clearance for my sex toys?" Tony's holding the stickers, staring at them, and then burst into hysterical laughter.

"Hey, there's a reason we didn't honeymoon anywhere we had to fly to. You don't want them messing in your stuff," Tim says when Tony stops laughing.

"Yeah, some of our toys, the expensive ones, got stolen when we went on our honeymoon. I mean, who steals sex toys? I'd assume that's not the sort of thing you want used," Jimmy adds.

"Ullg." Tim replies, shuddering.

"Yeah." Then Jimmy hugs Tony. "Congratulations. Go have fun."

Tim joins the hug. "So happy for you. Really."

* * *

He's dancing with Abby when an idea hit. "How about Dana?"

She didn't look like she was following him with that. "Dana?"

"Kelly Dana…"

Abby thinks about that for a minute, seeming to hear it in her mind, then something else hit. "How about we don't name our daughter after a woman you fantasize about having sex with?"

Tim laughs at that request. "You asked me for strong, kick-ass, female characters I love. Guess what? I fantasize about all of them."

"All of them?"

He's nodding. "Strong, kick-ass women I love, why wouldn't I?"

She thinks about that and smiles. "Good point."

"Kelly Abigail? Name her after the strong, kick-ass woman I love the most?" He kissed her as he finished that sentence.

She's smiling, pleased by the idea, but it's not something she wants. "No. One Abby's enough."

"It means father's joy, and that's certainly true. Sounds good, too."

"Your right on both of them, and I'm still using my veto on it."

"Fine."

Breena came over a second later. "They're getting ready to go, so time to get the bubbles out."

Abby nods.

"I'll get them," Tim says, they're in the trunk of his car.

* * *

It was well past midnight when they gathered under the cherry trees, blowing bubbles, sending Tony and Ziva on their way.

* * *

A/N: Want to see the pics that go with this? Head to: characters are my heroin. blogspot 2013/08/shards-to-whole-chapter-187. html


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